“I hope you are listening, Miss Minora,” said Irais, “because this sort of conversation is likely to do you good.”
“I always listen when people talk sensibly,” replied Minora, stirring her grog.
Irais glanced at her with slightly doubtful eyebrows. “Do you agree with our hostess’s description of women?” she asked after a pause.
“As nobodies? No, of course I do not.”
“Yet she is right. In the eye of the law we are literally nobodies in our country. Did you know that women are forbidden to go to political meetings here?”
“Really?” Out came the notebook.
“The law expressly forbids the attendance at such meetings of women, children, and idiots.”
“Children and idiots—I understand that,” said Minora; “but women—and classed with children and idiots?”
“Classed with children and idiots,” repeated Irais, gravely nodding her head. “Did you know that the law forbids females of any age to ride on the top of omnibuses or tramcars?”
“Not really?”
“Do you know why?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Because in going up and down the stairs those inside might perhaps catch a glimpse of the stocking covering their ankles.”
“But what—”
“Did you know that the morals of the German public are in such a shaky condition that a glimpse of that sort would be fatal to them?”
“But I don’t see how a stocking—”
“With stripes round it,” said Irais.
“And darns in it,” I added.
“—could possibly be pernicious?”
“ ‘The Pernicious Stocking; or, Thoughts on the Ethics of Petticoats,’ ” said Irais. “Put that down as the name of your next book on Germany.”
“I never know,” complained Minora, letting her notebook fall, “whether you are in earnest or not.”
“Don’t you?” said Irais sweetly.
“Is it true,” appealed Minora to the Man of Wrath, busy with his lemons in the background, “that your law classes women with children and idiots?”
“Certainly,” he answered promptly, “and a very proper classification, too.”
We all looked blank. “That’s rude,” said I at last.
“Truth is always rude, my dear,” he replied complacently. Then he added, “If I were commissioned to draw up a new legal code, and had previously enjoyed the privilege, as I have been doing lately, of listening to the conversation of you three young ladies, I should make precisely the same classification.”
Even Minora was incensed at this.
“You are telling us in the most unvarnished manner that we are idiots,” said Irais.
“Idiots? No, no, by no means. But children—nice little agreeable children. I very much like to hear you talk together. It is all so young and fresh what you think and what you believe, and not of the least consequence to anyone.”
“Not of the least consequence?” cried Minora. “What we believe is of very great consequence indeed to us.”
“Are you jeering at our beliefs?” inquired Irais sternly.
“Not for worlds. I would not on any account disturb or change your pretty little beliefs. It is your chief charm that you always believe everything. How desperate would our case be if young ladies only believed facts, and never accepted another person’s assurance, but preferred the evidence of their own eyes! They would have no illusions, and a woman without illusions is the dreariest and most difficult thing to manage possible.”
“Thing?” protested Irais.
The Man of Wrath, usually so silent, makes up for it from time to time by holding forth at unnecessary length. He took up his stand now with his back to the fire, and a glass of Glühwein in his hand. Minora had hardly heard his voice before, so quiet had he been since she came, and sat with her pencil raised, ready to fix forever the wisdom that should flow from his lips.
“What would become of poetry if women became so sensible that they turned a deaf ear to the poetic platitudes of love? That love does indulge in platitudes I suppose you will admit.” He looked at Irais.
“Yes, they all say exactly the same thing,” she acknowledged.
“Who could murmur pretty speeches on the beauty of a common sacrifice, if the listener’s want of imagination was such as to enable her only to distinguish one victim in the picture, and that one herself?”
Minora took that down word for word—much good may it do her.
“Who would be brave enough to affirm that if refused he will die, if his assurances merely elicit a recommendation to diet himself, and take plenty of outdoor exercise? Women are responsible for such lies, because they believe them. Their amazing vanity makes them swallow flattery so gross that it is an insult, and men will always be ready to tell the precise number of lies that a woman is ready to listen to. Who indulges more recklessly in glowing exaggerations than the lover who hopes, and has not yet obtained? He will, like the nightingale, sing with unceasing modulations, display all his talent, untiringly repeat his sweetest notes, until he has what he wants, when his song, like the nightingale’s, immediately ceases, never again to be heard.”
“Take that down,” murmured Irais aside to Minora—unnecessary advice, for her pencil was scribbling as fast as it could.
“A woman’s vanity is so immeasurable that, after having had ninety-nine object-lessons in the difference between promise and performance and the emptiness of pretty speeches, the beginning of the hundredth will find her lending the same willing and enchanted ear to the eloquence of flattery as she did on the occasion of the first. What can the exhortations of the strong-minded sister, who has never had these experiences, do for such a woman? It is useless to tell her she is man’s victim, that she is his plaything, that she is cheated, downtrodden, kept under, laughed
