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Unmarried And Married
by
“And so love is nothing but intoxication as far as a man is concerned!”
“As far as a woman is concerned too!”
“Nothing but intoxication!”
“Quite so! But there is no reason why one shouldn’t remain friends.”
“One need not get married for that!”
“No; and that’s exactly what I meant to point out.”
“You? Wasn’t it you who insisted on our marriage?”
“Only because you worried me about it day and night three long years.”
“But it was your wish, too!”
“Only because you wished it. Be grateful to me now that you’ve got it!”
“Shall I be grateful because you leave the mother of your children alone with them while you spend your time at the public-house?”
“No, not for that, but because I married you!” “You really think I ought to be grateful for that?”
“Yes, like all decent people who have got their way!”
“Well, there is no happiness in a marriage like ours. Your family doesn’t acknowledge me!”
“What have you got to do with my family? I haven’t married yours?”
“Because you didn’t think it good enough!”
“But mine was good enough for you. If they had been shoemakers, you wouldn’t mind so much.”
“You talk of shoemakers as if they were beneath your notice. Aren’t they human beings like everybody else?”
“Of course they are, but I don’t think you would have run after them.”
“All right! Have your own way.”
But it was not all right, and it was never again all right. Was it due to the fact of their being married, or was it due to something else? Mary-Louisa could not help admitting in her heart that the old times had been better times; they had been “jollier” she said.
He did not think that it was only owing to the fact that their marriage had been legalised for he had observed that other marriages, too, were not happy. And the worst of it all was this: when one day he went to see his old friend and Sophy, as he sometimes did, behind his wife’s back, he was told that there was an end to that matter. And they had not been married. So it could not have been marriage which was to blame.