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“That is to say yours?”

“No, the family’s. The family is a small community, the only one which possesses common property which, as a rule, is administered by the husband.”

“Why should he administer it and not the wife?”

“Because he has more time to give to it, since he does not bear children.”

“Why couldn’t they administer it jointly?”

“For the same reason that a joint stock company has only one managing director. If the wife administered as well, the children would claim the same right, for it is their property, too.”

“This is mere hair-splitting. I think it’s hard that I should have to ask your permission to buy a piano out of my own money.”

“It’s no longer your money.”

“But yours?”

“No, not mine either, but the family’s. And you are wrong when you say that you ‘have to ask for my permission’; it’s merely wise that you should consult with the administrator as to whether the position of affairs warrants your spending such a large sum on a luxury.”

“Do you call a piano a luxury?”

“A new piano, when there is an old one, must be termed a luxury. The position of our affairs is anything but satisfactory, and therefore it doesn’t permit you to buy a new piano at present, but I, personally, can or will have nothing to say against it.”

“An expenditure of a thousand crowns doesn’t mean ruin.”

“To incur a debt of a thousand crowns at the wrong time may be the first step towards ruin.”

“All this means that you refuse to buy me a new piano?”

“No, I won’t say that. The uncertain position of affairs….”

“When, oh! when will the day dawn on which the wife will manage her own affairs and have no need to go begging to her husband?”

“When she works herself. A man, your father, has earned your money. The men have gained all the wealth there is in the world; therefore it is but just that a sister should inherit less than her brother, especially as the brother is born with the duty to provide for a woman, while the sister need not provide for a man. Do you understand?”

“And you call that justice? Can you honestly maintain that it is? Ought we not all to share and share alike?”

“No, not always. One ought to share according to circumstances and merit. The idler who lies in the grass and watches the mason building a house, should have a smaller share than the mason.”

“Do you mean to insinuate that I am lazy?”

“H’m! I’d rather not say anything about that. But when I used to lie on the sofa, reading, you considered me a loafer, and I well remember that you said something to that effect in very plain language.”

“But what am I to do?”

“Take the children out for walks.”

“I’m not constituted to look after the children.”

“But there was a time when I had to do it. Let me tell you that a woman who says that she is not constituted to look after children, isn’t a woman. But that fact doesn’t make a man of her, by any means. What is she, then?”

“Shame on you that you should speak like that of the mother of your children!”

“What does the world call a man who will have nothing to do with women? Isn’t it something very ugly?”

“I won’t hear another word!”

And she left him and locked herself into her room.

She fell ill. The doctor, the almighty man, who took over the care of the body when the priest lost the care of the soul, pronounced country air and solitude to be harmful.

They were obliged to return to town so that the wife could have proper medical treatment.

Town had a splendid effect on her health; the air of the slums gave colour to her cheeks.

The lawyer practised his profession and so husband and wife had found safety-valves for their temperaments which refused to blend.