PAGE 14
Corinna
by
Her dress was hanging on a nail. The lines of her body were clearly defined on the thick, heavy serge. He caressed the material and hid his face in the lace which trimmed the neck; he put his arm round the waist, but the dress collapsed like a phantom. “They say the soul is a spirit,” he mused, “but then, it ought to be a tangible spirit, at least.” He approached the bed as if he expected to see an apparition. He touched everything, took everything in his hand.
At last, as if he were looking for something, something which should help him to solve the problem, he began to tug at the handles which ornamented the drawers of her writing-table; all the drawers were locked. As if by accident he opened the drawer of the little table by her bedside, and hastily closed it again, but not before he had read the title on the paper-cover of a small book and caught sight of a few strange-looking objects, the purpose of which he could guess.
That was it then! Facultative Sterility! What was intended for a remedy for the lower classes, who have been robbed of the means of existence, had become an instrument in the service of selfishness, the last consequence of idealism. Were the upper classes so degenerate that they refused to reproduce their species, or were they morally corrupt? They must be both, for they considered it immoral to bring illegitimate children into the world, and degrading to bear children in wedlock.
But he wanted children! He could afford to have them, and he considered it a duty as well as a glorious privilege to pour his individuality into a new being. It was Nature’s way from a true and healthy egoism towards altruism. But she travelled on another road and made jackets for the babies of strangers. Was that a better, a nobler thing to do? It stood for so much, and yet was nothing but fear of the burden of motherhood, and it was cheaper and less fatiguing to sit in the corner of a comfortable sofa and make little jackets than to bear the toil and broil of a nursery. It was looked upon as a disgrace to be a woman, to have a sex, to become a mother.
That was it. They called it working for Heaven, for higher interests, for humanity, but it was merely a pandering to vanity, to selfishness, to a desire for fame or notoriety.
And he had pitied her, he had suffered remorse because her sterility had made him angry. She had told him once that he deserved “the contempt of all good and honest men” because he had failed to speak of sterile women with the respect due to misfortune; she had told him that they were sacred, because their sorrow was the bitterest sorrow a woman could have to bear.
What, after all, was this woman working for? For progress? For the salvation of humanity? No, she was working against progress, against freedom and enlightenment. Hadn’t she recently brought forward a motion to limit religious liberty? Wasn’t she the author of a pamphlet on the intractability of servants? Wasn’t she advocating greater severity in the administration of the military laws? Was she not a supporter of the party which strives to ruin our girls by giving them the same miserable education which our boys receive?
He hated her soul, for he hated her ideas. And yet he loved her? What was it then that he loved?
Probably, he reflected, compelled to take refuge in philosophy, probably the germ of a new being, which she carries in her womb, but which she is bent on killing.
What else could it be?
But what did she love in him? His title, his position, his influence?
How could these old and worn-out men and women rebuild society?
He meant to tell her all this when she returned home; but in his inmost soul he knew all the time that the words would never be said. He knew that he would grovel before her and whine for her favour; that he would remain her slave and sell her his soul again and again, just as she sold him her body. He knew that that was what he would do, for he was head over ears in love with her.