John Marvel, Assistant Part 56

"Of public opinion--of the bourgeois so-called virtue of the middle cla.s.s who control everything."

"That is the only valid argument I ever heard in favor of the bourgeois," I said.

"What do you mean? Don't you agree with me?"

"I certainly do not. I may not seek virtue and ensue it; but at least I revere it."

"Do you mean that you think we should not write or talk of anything--forbidden?"

"That depends on what you mean by forbidden. If you mean----"

"I think there should be no subject forbidden," interrupted the lady by whom I had sat at table, a stout and tightly laced person of some forty summers. "Why shouldn't I talk of any subject I please?" She seemed to appeal to me, so I answered her.

"I do not at this instant think of any reason except that it might not be decent."

This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared for a moment to stagger her; but she was game, and rallied.

"I know--that is the answer I always get."

"Because it is the natural answer."

"But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?"

"Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. Your s.e.x were slaves, they were weaker physically, less robust; they were made beasts of burden, were beaten and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure, lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally the idea and age of chivalry came--based on the high Christian morality. You were placed on a pinnacle. Men loved and fought for your favor and made it the guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a mist of adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you as something cleaner and better and purer than themselves; built up a wall of division and protection for you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away, and come down in the mire and dust and dirt?"

"But I don't want to be adored--set up on a pedestal."

"Then you probably will not be," interrupted my deaf neighbor.

"I want to be treated as an equal--as an--an--intelligent being."

"I should think that would depend on yourself. I do not quite understand whom you wish to be the equal of--of men? Men are a very large cla.s.s--some are very low indeed."

"Oh! You know what I mean--of course, I don't mean that sort."

"You mean gentlemen?"

"Certainly."

"Then I a.s.sure you you cannot discuss indecent subjects in mixed company; gentlemen never do. Nor write coa.r.s.e books--gentlemen never do nowadays--nor discuss them either."

"Do you mean to say that great novelists never discuss such questions?"

she demanded triumphantly.

"No, but it is all in the manner--the motive. I have no objection to the matter--generally, provided it be properly handled--but the obvious intention--the rank indecentness of it. See how Scott or George Eliot, or Tolstoi or Turgenieff, or, later on, even Zola, handles such vital themes. How different their motive from the reeking putrescence of the so-called problem-novel."

"Oh! dear! they must be very bad indeed!" exclaimed a lady, shocked by the sound of my adjectives.

"They are," suddenly put in my oldest neighbor, who had been listening intently with his hand behind his ear, "only you ladies don't know how bad they are or you would not discuss them with men."

This closed the discussion and a group of ladies near me suddenly branched off into another subject and one which interested me more than the discussion of such literature as the trash which goes by the name of the problem novel.

"Who is Eleanor Leigh in love with?" asked some one irrelevantly--a Mrs.

Arrow--whose mind appeared much given to dwelling on such problems. She addressed the company generally, and possibly my former neighbor at the table in particular.

"Is she in love?" asked another.

"Certainly, I never saw any one so changed. Why, she has been moping so I scarcely know her--and she has taken to charity. That's a sure sign. I think it must be that young preacher she talks so much about."

"Well, I don't know who she is in love with," said the lady who had sat next to me at dinner, "but I know who she is going to marry. She is going to marry Jim Canter. Her aunt has made that match."

"Oh! do you think so?" demanded our hostess, who had joined the group.

"I don't believe she will marry any one she is not in love with, and I can't believe she is in love with that fat, coa.r.s.e, dissipated creature.

He is simply repulsive to me."

I began to conceive an even higher opinion of my hostess than I had already had.

"I don't think it is anybody," continued our hostess.

"Oh! yes, you do--you think it is Doctor Capon."

"Doctor Capon! It is much more likely to be Mr. Marvel."

"Mr. Marvel! Who is he?--Oh, yes, the young preacher who turned Jew and was put out of his church. I remember now."

"Is Mr. Marvel a Jew?" I inquired. "Oh! yes, indeed, and a terrible Socialist."

"Ah, I did not know that."

"I heard she was going to marry a Jew," interjected another lady corroboratively, "but I must say it looks very much like Mr. Canter to me."

"Oh! she wouldn't marry a Jew?" suggested Mrs. Arrow. "I heard there was a young lawyer or something."

"She would if she'd a mind to," said our hostess.

"I still stand by Doctor Capon," declared Mrs. Arrow. "He is so refined."

"And I by Jim Canter--I thought at one time it was Count Pushkin; but since Milly McSheen has taken him away, the other seems to be the winning card. I must say I think the count would have been the better match of the two."

"I don't think that," exclaimed the other lady. "And neither would you, if you knew him."

"Possibly, she knows the other," I suggested.

"Oh! no--you see she could get rid of the count, if he proved too objectionable, and then she would still have the t.i.tle."

"I never heard a more infamous proposal," I said in an aside to our hostess. She laughed. "No, did you--but she was only jesting----"

"Not she!" I was in no mood to tolerate jesting on the subject of Eleanor Leigh's marriage. My aside to our hostess drew the attention of the others to me, and Mrs. Arrow suddenly said, "Mr. Glave, which would you say? You know them both, don't you?"