“You shall hear.”
We got in. Mme. Wildenhoff gave the man orders to drive slowly.
“Quite a warm day!” she observed. … “Well, you see, I have one idée fixe, at least that’s what my husband calls it.”
“And that is? …”
“Ah, what a coincidence to have met you, of whom I was just thinking!”
“Very good, but what do you want me for?”
“Wait a bit; I must begin at the beginning.
“Let me tell you that I consider it a most important point that we should, in the cause of Woman, meet and come to an understanding with women of so-called ‘loose character.’ And, in particular, enter into social relations with them. It is indeed an eccentricity on my part; but I enjoy stemming and making head against the current.”
“It may lead to curious developments,” I said.
“You are perfectly right. In the first place, we must all of us get to understand our community of interests. The social boycott which the whole demimonde has to undergo, is a real civil war waged by women against one another; a weakening of our powers, to which men not only do not object, but which they also tend to aggravate. It is they who make ‘those dreadful creatures, bereft of a conscience,’ responsible for all the transgressions which they themselves commit: so that the fury of jealousy which their mothers and their wives, actual or intended, would otherwise pour out upon their heads, is all transformed into a feeling of hatred against such women. It is undoubtedly a very clever bit of tactics on their part; but we ought not to let ourselves be taken in so easily; we should all close our ranks and join shoulder to shoulder to fight the common foe.”
“But what if those women hate us more than we do them?”
“That they do, is true; but it is only because they believe us to be happier than they are. We have to dispel this egregious delusion; we must let them know that we feel our wrongs as keenly as they do theirs; that we recognize them as our companions in womanhood, as sharers in our common humanity. … It is because we do nothing that such a falsehood has been able to take such strong root.
“We should join with them, for they are our necessary complement: not only so, but mingle with them without endeavouring to intensify the difference between us and them by trying, in so far as we can, to deprive our souls of those immense fields of womanliness, and renounce to our own detriment the glamour of frivolity and of frailty. There must be a thorough fusion; and it is only by such levelling down that we shall arrive at the synthesis of womanhood: a new type, a complete type, in which the only difference observable will be those of individuals, not of avocations.”
“All that’s very fine, but where are you taking me?”
“I am coming to that. I am just paying a formal visit to an ex-courtesan, a Mme. Wieloleska—formerly Mary tout court, for I don’t know her family name. And I absolutely want you to come along with me.”
“But … is she possible?”
“Quite; you may believe me. She takes everything as a matter of course, and will be much pleased to receive you. … Only you will have to behave exactly as if she were Wieloleski’s real wife.”
“What? then they are not married?”
“The idea! The man has a wife and five children somewhere down in the country. … And that woman has got such a hold on him that he won’t stir so much as one step from her side. … You must take a look at their place. … She was formerly quite a common demimondaine, though well spoken of.”
“And how did you get to know her?”
“Oh, she’s an old acquaintance, made by means of Imszanski.”
The carriage had stopped in front of an ornamental gateway, leading to a handsome suburban villa, screened from view to some extent by a tracery of branches and tree-trunks, and in a frame of towering fir-trees.
As I went up the broad white steps at the entrance, I felt my heart beat, and could not tell exactly why. Perhaps at the fancy which then came to me, that I might, within those very doors, come face to face with the naked, dark, and horrible mystery of Life!
An elderly and very stylish footman raised the door-hanging to usher us into a large sitting-room, conventionally furnished à la sécession.
In a few minutes there entered a very tall, slim, ladylike person, quietly dressed in a clinging morning gown, somewhat like a riding-habit, and followed by a little white lamb, which came treading stiffly and sometimes funnily sliding along the polished floor.
Mme. Mary welcomed Mme. Wildenhoff with smiling effusion.
“I have come to call upon you with a friend of mine: Miss Dernowicz, Mme. Wieloleska,” she said, introducing me. “I trust you will have no objection; I wanted to show her your greenhouse very much.”
“Indeed, my dear Madame, but you are doing me a pleasure. I feel so bored in this solitude, where I see nobody at all. All day long, my husband is in the greenhouse or pottering about the hotbeds; he has engaged a new gardener from Haarlem, and it is quite out of the question getting him anywhere out of doors. If you care, we shall have a look at the greenhouse at once. I tell you, if it were not for my books and studies, I really might be tempted to make away with myself.”
“And why should you not take a walk sometimes? The weather is splendid just now.”
“Oh, no! My husband won’t go out; and it would not be proper for a woman to go out alone. You know how uncharitable people are.”
“And what may you be studying, Madame?” I asked.
“Pretty nearly everything possible,” she replied, laughing. “I take at least five hours of lessons daily. One of my professors only just left the house: he is giving me a course of University lessons on the ancient literature
