IX
WHO _IS_ THE "IDEAL" MISTRESS?
The most determined advocates of free-love have never upheld the old,lazy indulgence towards man and his "wild oats." The ideal mistress,whom they so confidently exalt over the wife, is not the "kept woman"behind Victorian respectability. Modern writers have, boldly andjustly, attacked that discreet indiscretion with the unanswerablelogic of facts. If we allow men licence, justice demands equal libertyfor women. Sin is not less, but greater, for being in secret, howeverflimsy the veil.
It is difficult, nevertheless, to see how _mutual_ infidelity canactually remove the admitted evils of a situation it makes morecomplex; or to believe that publicity can, of itself, turn black towhite. By some curious twist of reasoning, it really would seem thatthey maintain: "By lifting the blinds, we have created a 'new' woman,the ideal of all the ages."
For where, after all, have they turned to find her, save to theirknowledge and experience of the past? We cannot, positively,reconstruct human nature.
There is a clear and concise exposition of the whole theory in MissRomer Wilson's last novel, _The Death of Society_. It is the story ofMr. Smith and his short visit to a distinguished Norwegian writer. He,quite openly, worships the old man's young wife—"his girl, his woman,his desire"—and though for them "time was so short they could notafford to sleep," it is expressly stated that "_she, the perfect womanin whom all women live, raised him to perfect manhood_." "Now," hesaid, "I have confidence to do what I think right. . . . I do not carefor opinion any longer."
Together, "they fell into the deep pool of love," when she "was too fargone in bliss to reply."
"Many men," she said, "men who came to see my husband, thought thatI was part of the visit, and that no man who thought well of himselfshould go away without seducing me." But "that is how you seduced me,because I saw love sprang straight from your heart and not from custom."
"There was an Italian man who loved me, but not more than the bookswith gold covers on his shelves. . . . He said I was the Muse ofComedy. . . . There was a Frenchman who said I was the Muse ofPoetry. . . . There was a Russian who said nothing. . . . He loved mebecause we were both animals; but only you love me because I am part ofyour life and so I love you equally."
Miss Wilson, indeed, attempts to impart a unique atmosphere into thiscommonplace intrigue by a remarkable device. Smith "cannot speakGerman, nor speak Norwegian." _She_ knows only a few words of English."I like to _pretend_ you hear," said Rosa, "I have always pretended";and he "could address her in whatever words he liked," since "lovers'language is universal."
By this method they do, in fact, hold conversations by the hour,answering each other with quite miraculous preciseness; understanding,we are expected to believe, the intimacies of thought and feelingbehind each phrase: "though he had no idea what she had said, word forword." The intention, obviously, is to suggest some special mysterious,if not miraculous, bond of the spirit knitting two souls in one. Thecomment of a plain man, who deals with facts, must be that inarticulatelove can be only physical. It does not elevate, but further degrades,their intimacy. He "had gone back to the dust to learn about God."
They parted, however, because "they loved each other too much to askfor each other's lives." Meanwhile, "in patience and humility" theymust wait "until after the Death of Society"—when they can be together.
"How should I act," said Rosa, "if there were no such a thing asSociety? I know how I should act. . . . I owe nothing to either man orwoman. My name? My husband's name?—these belong to Society. . . . Iwill not leave my husband, because he is an old man, nor my daughters,because they are young; but if I give you a day of love, and againa day perhaps, whom shall I hurt? . . . My soul belongs to nobody:I—Rosa Christiansen—am my own. _My body is my soul's servant andfriend, and by it I can know other souls as I know my own._ . . . Oh!oh! My soul is mine, and loves your soul!"
We see that the "perfect woman" still kept on husband and home.
And Smith, thus "proudly numbering himself among the angels," alsofound time for a secondary, but quite passionate, intercourse with oneof the daughters of the house, who willingly gives him everything shehas; because she loves him so much, he is all she wants.
He "kissed her violently on the face . . . squeezed her ribs as tightas ever he dared," and replied without hesitation, "I love you as Ilove flowers and the trees and the sky. I love you because you arelovable as a wet or fine day is lovable. Why, yes, I must confess thatI love you. . . . . I believe all men love a great many women. . . . Iam a Bluebeard with a cellar full of wives. . . . You see, God hasn'tcreated the woman yet who represents the whole of female perfection.Don't mistake me, Nathalia; I am not a beast. I don't run after womensolely as women. . . . He began to stroke her head as he thought of allthose past and bygone romances."
And so on——! Strangely enough, "his heart was filled with deep andtender _respect for her_."
More frequently, however, the novelists of this school seem to havegone back to the casual lusts of _Tom Jones_, with the rôle of hero andheroine reversed. There are many tales, almost romantic, of Sir Galahadwaiting and tilting for Cleopatra or Mary Queen of Scots. Too often,marriage is merely evidence that "the _man_ has held out."
Still we maintain that the modernists are really looking to theold-world "kept" woman for their ideal of more or less open and, as itwere, established free love. We find clear, specific complaints againstthe new system: "They had lapsed into a relation which slowly fromirregular grew regular. It was not marriage, but it was in the natureof marriage." Now, "after two and a half years . . . she had done wifelythings for him. . . . Love and domestic economy; it was very likemarriage after all."
What then, frankly speaking, is the real charm of the newmistress-love? Most obviously it comes, ultimately, from the holidayspirit; its freedom from sordid or petty cares, the prose of our dailylife, business or home worries, the responsibilities that dull theeye and wear down body and soul: which _means_ the incarnation ofselfishness.
Outspoken and simply coarse writers of the past centuries expose thisfact by their frank hints on "the honeymoon"; of which we acknowledgethe underlying truth.
It has been cynically maintained, nor dare one quite deny, thatour romance-lady, the sheltered and innocent pure girl, would havebeen broken long ago but for the "outlet," to mere males, of herunder-sister. I would suggest that the new "ideal" mistress iscertainly no less, probably more, dependent upon the housewife—thetame, tied woman who bears her lover's name.
We can none of us escape "the day's work." Under the conventional "wildoats" scheme of life, we _can_ place the whole burden upon the wife:and so find elsewhere "The Woman"—passionately and emotionally ourideal.
But no theory of free love was ever based upon two establishments. Thewhole weight of the new thought cries out for open, frank _leaving onewoman_ and _going to the other_; where possible by mutual consent. Thesecrecy, the misunderstanding, _the divided allegiance_, of the oldworld, is the very evil they are clamouring to wipe out. Yet _can_we leave our bills, our servants, and our children behind with thefixtures of the old "home to let"? Can we spend our life, or for thatmatter, more than a few days or weeks, in one perpetual holiday amongthe "beach-flappers" of Miss Amber Reeves' unstable _Helen in Love_ andthe boys they so gaily and easily annex?
The truth, of course, cannot be denied. These new, glorifiedsex-contracts (whether entirely free, or on a "short lease" subjectto "things going well") will, and must, involve all the trials ofdomesticity, without the compensations of a shared responsibility:a real bond to halve our sorrows and double our joys. There will,moreover, be a thousand times more occasion for incompatibility, thejar of nerves; where there is no steady, devoted endeavour towardsmutual forbearance and understanding, no spur to forgive—in courageoushope. Life in hotels may, superficially, expose less friction; but itquickly destroys any reality in comradeship. Only daily service canbuild up Love.
The mistress, in fact, remains an enervating lu
xury, a habit of livingbeyond our emotional means, a sparkling drug.
_We have not found the Ideal, because it does not exist._
Moral Poison in Modern Fiction Page 9