I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreampt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift – in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, "Choose!"
And the woman waited long; and she said: "Freedom!" And Life said, "Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, 'Love,' I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand." I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.
Olive Schreener's Dreams.
DEDICATED
With the love and admiration of the Author,
To Her Husband
Who is ever at once her first, most severe, and most sympathetic critic, whose encouragement and interest in her work never flags; whose abiding belief in human rights, without sex limitations, and in equality of opportunity leaves scant room in his great soul to harbor patience with sex domination in a land which boasts of freedom for all, and embodies its symbol of Liberty in the form of the only legally disqualified and unrepresented class to be found upon its shores.
PREFACE
In the following story the writer shows us what poverty and dependence are in their revolting outward aspects, as well as in their crippling effects on all the tender sentiments of the human soul. Whilst the many suffer for want of the decencies of life, the few have no knowledge of such conditions.
They require the poor to keep clean, where water by landlords is considered a luxury; to keep their garments whole, where they have naught but rags to stitch together, twice and thrice worn threadbare. The improvidence of the poor as a valid excuse for ignorance, poverty, and vice, is as inadequate as is the providence of the rich, for their virtue, luxury, and power. The artificial conditions of society are based on false theories of government, religion, and morals, and not upon the decrees of a God.
In this little volume we have a picture, too, of what the world would call a happy family, in which a naturally strong, honest woman is shrivelled into a mere echo of her husband, and the popular sentiment of the class to which she belongs. The daughter having been educated in a college with young men, and tasted of the tree of knowledge, and, like the Gods, knowing good and evil, can no longer square her life by opinions she has outgrown; hence with her parents there is friction, struggle, open revolt, though conscientious and respectful withal.
Three girls belonging to different classes in society; each illustrates the false philosophy on which woman's character is based, and each in a different way, in the supreme moment of her life, shows the necessity of self-reliance and self-support.
As the wrongs of society can be more deeply impressed on a large class of readers in the form of fiction than by essays, sermons, or the facts of science, I hail with pleasure all such attempts by the young writers of our day. The slave has had his novelist and poet, the farmer his, the victims of ignorance and poverty theirs, but up to this time the refinements of cruelty suffered by intelligent, educated women, have never been painted in glowing colors, so that the living picture could be seen and understood. It is easy to rouse attention to the grosser forms of suffering and injustice, but the humiliations of spirit are not so easily described and appreciated.
A class of earnest reformers have, for the last fifty years, in the press, the pulpit, and on the platform, with essays, speeches, and constitutional arguments before legislative assemblies, demanded the complete emancipation of women from the political, religious, and social bondage she now endures; but as yet few see clearly the need of larger freedom, and the many maintain a stolid indifference to the demand.
I have long waited and watched for some woman to arise to do for her sex what Mrs. Stowe did for the black race in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a book that did more to rouse the national conscience than all the glowing appeals and constitutional arguments that agitated our people during half a century. If, from an objective point of view, a writer could thus eloquently portray the sorrows of a subject race, how much more graphically should some woman describe the degradation of sex.
In Helen Gardener's stories, I see the promise, in the near future, of such a work of fiction, that shall paint the awful facts of woman's position in living colors that all must see and feel. The civil and canon law, state and church alike, make the mothers of the race a helpless, ostracised class, pariahs of a corrupt civilization. In view of woman's multiplied wrongs, my heart oft echoes the Russian poet who said: "God has forgotten where he hid the key to woman's emancipation." Those who know the sad facts of woman's life, so carefully veiled from society at large, will not consider the pictures in this story overdrawn.
The shallow and thoughtless may know nothing of their existence, while the helpless victims, not being able to trace the causes of their misery, are in no position to state their wrongs themselves.
Nevertheless all the author describes in this sad story, and worse still, is realized in everyday life, and the dark shadows dim the sunshine in every household.
The apathy of the public to the wrongs of woman is clearly seen at this hour, in propositions now under consideration in the Legislature of New York. Though two infamous bills have been laid before select committees, one to legalize prostitution, and one to lower the age of consent, the people have been alike ignorant and indifferent to these measures. When it was proposed to take a fragment of Central Park for a race course, a great public meeting of protest was called at once, and hundreds of men hastened to Albany to defeat the measure.
But the proposed invasion of the personal rights of woman, and the wholesale desecration of childhood has scarce created a ripple on the surface of society. The many do not know what laws their rulers are making, and the few do not care, so long as they do not feel the iron teeth of the law in their own flesh. Not one father in the House or Senate would willingly have his wife, sister, or daughter subject to these infamous bills proposed for the daughters of the people. Alas! for the degradation of sex, even in this republic. When one may barter away all that is precious to pure and innocent childhood at the age of ten years, you may as well talk of a girl's safety with wild beasts in the tangled forests of Africa, as in the present civilizations of England and America, the leading nations on the globe.
Some critics say that every one knows and condemns these facts in our social life, and that we do not need fiction to intensify the public disgust. Others say, Why call the attention of the young and the innocent to the existence of evils they should never know. The majority of people do not watch legislative proceedings.
To keep our sons and daughters innocent, we must warn them of the dangers that beset their path on every side.
Ignorance under no circumstances ensures safety. Honor protected by knowledge, is safer than innocence protected by ignorance.
A few brave women are laboring to-day to secure for their less capable, less thoughtful, less imaginative sisters, a recognition of a true womanhood based on individual rights. There is just one remedy for the social complications based on sex, and that is equality for woman in every relation in life.
Men must learn to respect her as an equal factor in civilization, and she must learn to respect herself as mother of the race. Womanhood is the great primal fact of her existence; marriage and maternity, its incidents.
This story shows that the very traits of character which society (whose opinions are made and modified by men) considers most important and charming in woman to ensure her success in social life, are the very traits that ultimately lead to her failure.
Self-effacement, self-distrust, dependence and desire to please, compliance, deference to the judgment and will of another, are what make young women, in the opinion of these believers in sex domination, most agreeable; but these are the very traits that lead to her ruin.
The danger of such training is well illustrated in the sad end of Ettie Berton. When the trials and temptations of life come, then each one must decide for herself, and hold in her own hands the reins of action. Educated women of the passing generation chafe under the old order of things, but, like Mrs. Foster in the present volume, are not strong enough to swim up stream. But girls like Gertrude, who in the college curriculum have measured their powers and capacities with strong young men and found themselves their equals, have outgrown this superstition of divinely ordained sex domination. The divine rights of kings, nobles, popes, and bishops have long been questioned, and now that of sex is under consideration and from the signs of the times, with all other forms of class and caste, it is destined soon to pass away.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I
To say that Mrs. Foster was cruel, that she lacked sympathy with the unfortunate, or that she was selfish, would be to state only the dark half of a truism that has a wider application than class or sex could give it; a truism whose boundary lines, indeed, are set by nothing short of the ignorance of human beings hedged in by prejudice and handicapped by lack of imagination. So when she sat, with dainty folded hands whose jeweled softness found fitting background on the crimson velvet of her trailing gown, and announced that she could endure everything associated with, and felt deep sympathy for, the poor if it were not for the besetting sin of uncleanliness that found its home almost invariably where poverty dwelt, it would be unjust to pronounce her hard-hearted or base.
"It is all nonsense to say that the poor need be so dirty," she announced, as she held her splendid feather fan in one hand and caressed the dainty tips of the white plumes with the tips of fingers only less dainty and white.
"I have rarely ever seen a really poor man, woman, or child who was at the same time really clean looking in person, and as to clothes – "
She broke off with an impatient and disgusted little shrug, as if to say – what was quite true – that even the touch of properly descriptive words held for her more soilure than she cared to bear contact with.
John Martin laughed. Then he essayed to banter his hostess, addressing his remarks meanwhile to her daughter.
"One could not imagine your mamma a victim of poverty and hunger, much less of dirt, Miss Gertrude," he began slowly; "but even that sumptuous velvet gown of hers would grow to look more or less – let us say – rusty, in time, I fear, if it were the only costume she possessed, and she were obliged to eat, cook, wash, iron, sew, and market in it."
The two ladies laughed merrily at the droll suggestion, and Miss Gertrude pursed up her lips and developed a decided squint in her eyes as she turned them upon the folds of her mother's robe. Then she took up Mr. Martin's description where the laugh had broken in upon it.
"Too true, too true," she drawled; "and if she dusted the furniture a week or so with that fan, I'm afraid it would lose more or less of its – gloss. Mamma quite prides herself upon the delicate peach-fuzz-bloom, so to speak, of those feathers. Just look at them!" The girl reached over and took the fan from her mother's lap. She spread the fine plumes to their fullest capacity, and held them under the rays of the brass lamp that stood near their guest. Then she made a flourish with it in the direction of the music stand, as if she were intent upon whisking the last speck of dust from the sheets of Tannhauser that lay on its top A little cry of alarm and protest escaped Mrs. Foster's lips and she stretched oat her hand to rescue the beloved fan.
"Gertrude! how can you?" She settled back comfortably against the cushions of the low divan with her rescued treasure once more waving in gentle gracefulness before her.
"Oh, no," she protested. "Of course one could not work or live constantly in one or two gowns and look fresh, but one could look and be clean and – and whole. A patch is not pretty I admit, but it is a decided improvement upon a bare elbow."
"I don't agree with you at all," smiled her guest; "I don't believe I ever saw a patch in all my life that would be an improvement upon – upon – " He glanced at the lovely round white arms before him, and all three laughed. Mrs. Foster thought of how many Russian baths and massage treatments had tended to give the exquisite curve and tint to her arm.
"Then beside," smiled Mr. Martin, "a rent or hole may be an immediate accident, liable to happen to the best of us. A patch looks like premeditated poverty." Gertrude laughed brightly, but her mother did not appear to have heard. She reverted to the previous insinuation.
"Oh, well; that is not fair! You know what I mean. I'm talking of elbows that burst or wear out – not about those that never were intended to be in. Then, besides, it is not the elbow I object to; it is the hole one sees it through. It tells a tale of shiftlessness and personal untidiness that saps all sympathy for the poverty that compelled the long wearing of the garment."
"Why, my dear Mrs. Foster," said Martin, slowly, "I wonder if you have any idea of a grade of poverty that simply can't be either whole or clean. Did – ?"
"I'll give up the whole, but I won't give in on the clean. I can easily see how a woman could be too tired, too ill, or too busy to mend a garment; I can fancy her not knowing how to sew, or not having thread, needles, and patches; but, surely, surely, Mr. Martin, no one living is too poor to keep clean. Water is free, and it doesn't take long to take a bath. Besides – "
Gertrude looked at her mother with a smile. Then she said with her sarcastic little drawl again: —
"Russian, or Turkish?"
"Well, but fun' and nonsense aside, Gertrude," said her mother, "a plain hot bath at home would make a new creature out of half the wretches one sees or reads of, and – "
"Porcelain lined bath-tub, hot and cold water furnished at all hours. Bath-room adjoining each sleeping apartment," laughed Mr. Martin. "What a delightful idea you have of abject poverty, Mrs. Foster. I do wish Fred could have heard that last remark of yours. I went with his clerk one day to collect rents down in Mulberry Street. He had the collection of the rents for the Feedour estate on his hands – "
"What's that about the rents of the Feedour estate?" inquired the head of the house, extending his hand to their guest as he entered. Mrs. Foster put out her hand and her husband touched the tips of her fingers to his lips, while Gertrude slipped her arm through her father's and drew him to a seat beside her. Her eyes were dancing, and she showed a double row of the whitest of teeth.
"Oh, Mr. Martin was just explaining to mamma how your clerk collects rent for the porcelain bath-tubs in the Feedour property down in Mulberry Street. Mamma thinks that bath-rooms should be free – hot and cold water, and all convenient appointments."
Fred Foster looked at their guest for a moment, and then both men burst into a hearty laugh.
"I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Mrs. Foster. "Unless you are guying me for thinking Mr. Martin in earnest about the tubs being rented. I suppose, of course, the bath-rooms go with the apartments, and one rent covers the whole of it. In which case, I still insist that there is no reason why the poor can't be clean, and if they have only one suit of clothes, they can wash them out at night and have them dry next morning."
The men laughed again.
"Gertrude, has your mamma read her essay yet before the Ladies' Artistic and Ethical Club on the 'Self-Inflicted Sorrows of the Poor?'" asked Mr. Foster, pinching his daughter's chin, and allowing a chuckle of humorous derision to escape him as he glanced at their guest.
"No," said the girl, a trifle uneasily; "Lizzie Feedour read last time. Mamma's is next, and she has read her paper to me. It is just as good as it can be. Better than half the essays used to be at college, not excepting Mr. Holt's prize thesis on economics. I wish the poor people could hear it. She speaks very kindly of their faults even while criticising them. You – "
"Don't visit the tenement houses of the Feedour estate, dear, until after you read your paper to the club," laughed her husband, "or your essay won't take half so well. College theses and cold facts are not likely to be more than third cousins; eh, Martin? I'm sure the part on cleanliness would be easier for her to manage in discussion before she visited the Spillini family, for example."
"Which one is that, Fred?" asked Mr. Foster.
Martin, a droll twinkle in his eye. "The family of eight, with Irish mother and Italian father, who live in one room and take boarders?"
There was a little explosive "oh" of protest from Gertrude, while her mother laughed delightedly.
"Mr. Martin, you are so perfectly absurd. Why didn't you say that the room was only ten by fifteen feet and had but one window!"
"Because I don't think it is quite so big as that, and there is no outside window at all," said he, quite gravely. "And their only bath-tub for the entire crowd is a small tin basin also used to wash dishes in."
"W-h-a-t!" exclaimed Mrs. Foster, as if she were beginning to suspect their guest's sanity, for she recognized that his mood had changed from one of banter.
The portière was drawn aside, and other guests announced. As Mrs. Foster swept forward to meet them, Gertrude grasped her father's arm and looked into his eyes with something very like terror in her own. "Papa," she said hastily, in an intense undertone; "Papa, is he in earnest? Do the Feedour girls collect rent from such awful poverty as that? Do eight human beings eat and sleep – live – in one room anywhere in a Christian country? Does – ?"
Her father took both of her hands in his own for a moment and looked steadily into her face.
"Hundreds of them, darling," he said, gently. "Don't stare at Miss Feedour that way. Go speak to her. She is looking toward us, and your mother has left her with Martin quite long enough. He is in an ugly humor to-night. Go – no, come," he said, slipping her hand in his arm and drawing her forward through the long rooms to where the group of guests were greeting each other with that easy familiarity which told of frequent intercourse and community of interests and social information.
II
Two hours later Gertrude found herself near a low window seat upon which sat John Martin. She could not remember when he had not been her father's closest friend, and she had no idea why his moods had changed so of late. He was much less free and fatherly with her. She wondered now if he despised her because she knew so little of the real woes of a real world about her, while she, in common with those of her station, sighed so heavily over the needs of a more distant or less repulsive human swarm.
"Will you take me to see the Spillini family some day soon, Mr. Martin," she asked, seating herself by his side. "Papa said that you were telling the truth – were not joking as I thought at first."
Her eyes were following the graceful movements of Lizzie Feedour, as that young lady turned the leaves of a handsome volume that lay on the table before her, and a gentleman with whom she was discussing its merits and defects.
"I don't believe the call would be a pleasure on either side," said Mr. Martin, brusquely, "unless we sent word the day before and had some of the family moved out and a chair taken in."
The girl turned her eyes slowly upon him, but she did not speak. The color began to climb into his face and dye the very roots of his hair. She wondered why. Her own face was rather paler than usual and her eyes were very serious.
"You don't want to take me," she said. "I wonder why men always try to keep girls from knowing things – from learning of the world as it is – and then blame them for their ignorance! You naturally think I am a very silly, light girl, but – "
A great panic overtook John Martin's heart. He could hardly keep back the tears. He felt the blood rush to his face again, but he did not know just what he said.
"I do not – I do not! You are – I – I – should hate to be the one to introduce you to such a view of life. I was an old fool to talk as I did this evening. I – "
"Oh, that is it!" exclaimed Gertrude, relieved. "You found me ignorant, and content because I was ignorant, and you regret that you have struck a chord – a serious chord – where only make-believe or merry ones were ever struck between us before."
John Martin fidgeted.
"No, it is not that I would like to strike the first serious chord for you – in your heart, Gertrude."
He had called her Gertrude for years. Indeed the Miss upon his lips was of very recent date, but there was a meaning in the name just now as he spoke it that gave the girl a distinct shock. She felt that he was covering retreat in one direction by a mendacious advance in another. She arose suddenly.
"Lizzie Feedour is looking her best tonight," she said. "She grows handsomer every day."
She had moved forward a step, but he caught the hand that hung by her side. She faced him with a look of mingled protest and surprise in her face; but when her eyes met his, she understood.
"Gertrude, darling!" was all he could say. This time the blood dyed her face and a mist blinded her for a moment. She remembered feeling glad that her back was turned to everyone but him, and that the window drapery hid his face from the others, for the intensity of appeal touched with the faintest shimmer of happiness and hope told so plain a story that she felt, rather than thought, how absurd it would look to anyone else. She did not realize why it seemed less absurd to her. She drew her hand away and the color died out of his face. Her own was burning. She had turned to leave the room when his disappointed face swam before her eyes again. She put out her hand quickly as if bidding him good-night and drew him toward the door. He moved beside her as in a dream.
"After you take me to see the Spillini family," she said, trying to appear natural to any eyes that might be upon her, "we – I – " They had reached the portière. She drew it aside and he stepped beyond.
"There is no companionship between two people who look upon life so unequally. Those who know all about the world that contains the Spillini family and those who know nothing of such a world are very far apart in thought and in development There is no mental comradeship. I feel very far from my father to-night for the first time – mamma and I. I have looked at her all the evening in wonder – and at him. I wonder how they have contrived to live so far apart. How could he help sharing his views and knowledge of life with her, if he thinks her and wishes her to be his real companion and comrade. I could not live that way."
She seemed to have forgotten the newer, nearer question, in contemplating the problem that had startled her earlier in the evening. John Martin thought it was all a bit of kind-hearted acting to cover his retreat. He dropped her hand. A man-servant was holding his coat. He thrust his arms in and took his hat.
"Will you take me to see the Spillini family tomorrow?" asked a soft voice from the portière. A great wave of joy rushed over John Martin. He did not know why.
"Yes," he said, in a tone that was so distinctly happy that the man-servant stared. The folds of the portière fell together and John Martin passed out onto Fifth Avenue, in an ecstasy.
He is willing to share his knowledge of life with me – of life as he sees and knows it – she thought, as she lay awake that night. He does not wish to live on one plane and have me live on another. That looks like real love. Poor mamma! Poor papa! How far apart they are. To him life is a real thing. He knows its meaning and what it holds. She only knows a shell that is furbished up and polished to attract the eye of children. It is as if he were reading a book to her in a language he understood and she did not. The sound would be its entire message to her, while he gathered in and kept to himself all the meaning of the words – the force of the thoughts. How can they bear such isolation. How can they? she thought with a new feeling of passionate protest that mingled with her dreams.