Rambles in Womanland Part 10

The men hate him, too, but they feel as powerless as the women do. They would like to slap his face, but you cannot say to a man:

'I slap your face because I saw you smile on hearing my wife's name.'

No, that would be too absurd. He knows it, and that is why he goes on smiling. He is safe.

When he hears a bit of gossip on a woman, he immediately takes her defence, but in such a weak manner, and with such a smile on his face all the time, that people immediately come to the conclusion that 'it must be all true.'

What is most provoking is that the man has not a bad reputation. He has never been openly mixed in any intrigue, and even his intimate friends have never heard of any love affair connecting him with any woman. For some people he is an enigma, for others a clever comedian, a maniac, a bore, or a fop.

For men who justly hold that women should be treated with such respect that no act of man should cause anyone to even breathe a light remark on their character, the man who smiles is a cur.

CHAPTER XV

WOMEN AND DOLLS

The love of little girls for their dolls is a very serious love; it absolutely amounts to maternal tenderness. I have watched little girls nurse their dolls, and detected in their eyes that almost divine glance that you can see in devoted mothers tending their little children. For that matter a little girl is only a woman in miniature. A young boy has none, or very few, of the characteristics of a man; but a young girl has, at ten years of age, all the characteristics of a woman.

I have known little girls of ten and twelve who were perfect flirts, little coquettes, careful housekeepers, and, toward their dolls, most devoted mothers. I remember one who sternly refused to accompany us to a most tempting party, because her doll had a cold and she felt she must stay at home to nurse it. She was absolutely serious over it, and found even great delight in remaining at home all the time by the bedside of her doll. I remember another who had spent the whole morning cleaning her doll's house from top to bottom. When it was all over she drew a great sigh of relief. 'At last,' she said, 'the house is clean; that's comfort, anyway.' A good, dutiful, bourgeois housewife would not have expressed herself otherwise. Have you not, some of you, even seen little girls give medicines to their dolls, rock them to sleep, put them to bed, tuck them in most carefully, and see that the bedclothes did not choke them and cause them to have nightmares? I have, many times.

A man very often shows inclinations, tastes, and all sorts of characteristic traits which his parents never discovered in him when he was a young boy; but a woman of thirty is what she was when she was ten, only a little more so. A bad boy may become a very good man, and I have known very good boys become very bad men; but a caressing, loving little girl will surely make a loving wife and a tender mother; a cold and uncaressing little girl will become a heartless woman, an indifferent wife and mother. A boy is a boy! a little girl is a little woman.

This is so true that women, many women at all events, who treated their dolls as if they were children, treat their children as if they were dolls. It is the survival of the little girl in the woman. I have known women allow the hair of their boys to fall down their backs in long curls because they looked prettier and more like dolls, although they must have known that the sap of their young bodies was feeding hair at the expense of other far more important parts of their anatomy. When you see a woman most attentive to her baby, insisting on washing it, dressing it herself, you say: 'She is a most dutiful mother; she would trust no one but herself to attend her little child.' But it is not only the satisfaction of a duty performed that makes that woman look so happy, it is also the pleasure she derives from it. And the odds are ten to one that this very woman will play at doll with her child a great deal too long, and that the day on which she will be compelled to allow the child to have some liberty and become independent of her, she will resent it.

There is not, I believe, a single elderly woman that does not prefer the child of her daughter to her daughter herself, who has become now an unmanageable doll who dresses and undresses without the help of anybody.

And if this daughter does not allow her mother to do with the grandchild just as she likes, there will be trouble, caused by jealousy. There will be two women now to play at dolls. Why does a grandmother indulge a young child, give it sweets and candies? Is it to give that child a good digestion? No; it is to play at dolls. Do they dress little girls like the 'princ.i.p.al boys' of pantomimes in the palace scene, in order to make them acquire modest tastes and sensible notions? No; it is to play at dolls.

Woman plays at dolls to the end of her life, with her toys, with her children, with her grandchildren, and with herself.

I have never heard women have a good word to say of daughters-in-law who had not given children to their sons. Poor, dear old ladies! They certainly were under the impression that their sons had only one object in view when they contemplated matrimony, that of presenting 'Grannie'

with dolls to play with. I quite understand that grandmothers should be admired, that children should bless them, and even advise other children to 'get some,' when they have not got any, but I do not think that grandmothers should be held up to the world as models, because more than nine times out of ten they spoil children, and derive pleasure not from duties performed to the child, but from the satisfaction of playing at dolls. I have very often met sensible mothers, but grandmothers seldom; they generally are incorrigible sinners--and proud of it, too.

Alphonse Karr, in his 'Reminiscences,' relates how he used to meet in society a young and charming woman who always behaved towards him in a very cool manner. Unable to understand the reason, he one day took a chair by her side, made himself particularly pleasant, and point-blank asked her why she did not seem pleased to meet him, and inquired whether he might have unconsciously done anything to cause her displeasure. For a long time she defended herself, a.s.suring him that her coldness towards him was only in his imagination; but, as he insisted, she at last said to him: 'Well, I will tell you. It was thirty-five years ago. One afternoon you called on us, and I was in the drawing-room. Being invited to take a seat by my mother, you chose an arm-chair on which my doll was asleep. You removed it, and quite unceremoniously laid it on a table, head downwards, at the risk of hurting it. In fact, you damaged its nose. I conceived for you a perfect hatred, and, upon my word, I do not think that I am now capable of forgiving you altogether.'

MORAL.--If you want to get into the good graces of a woman, praise her baby; if you want a little girl to love you, admire her dolls and treat them with respect.

CHAPTER XVI

MEN AS A RULE ARE SELFISH--TWO KINDS OF SELFISH MEN

There are in the world men who are devotion and self-abnegation personified; there are women who are the embodiment of selfishness. From this we cannot lay down a rule any more than we could if, in landing in New York, we saw a red-haired woman, and said at once:

'The Americans are a red-haired people.'

But as, during my life, I have known more men who are selfish than unselfish, and more women who are unselfish than selfish, I am prepared to conclude that man is more selfish than woman.

I have known men of small income (and in their way good men they were) belong to two or three clubs, dine at expensive restaurants, and smoke excellent cigars all day long.

Their daughters had to give lessons in order to obtain the money that was necessary for dressing decently, and the house had to be kept on most economical lines.

I have known others, not worse than those I have just mentioned, allow nothing but water on their family table, and take champagne for dinner at the club or the restaurant.

I could divide selfish men into two cla.s.ses: the man with good redeeming features, and the execrably selfish man.

The former is good-hearted and fairly sensitive. He hates n.o.body, because hatred disturbs sleep and rest. He avoids emotions for his own comfort; he is learnedly selfish.

If you are unhappy, in distressed circ.u.mstances, don't bother him about it. He is sorry, he cannot help it, and he would rather not hear of it.

If you are ill, do not expect a visit from him; the sight of pain or grief affects him. If you are in want, he may send you a 5 note, but he does not want to see you. He seeks the company of cheerful and happy people only.

He has an income of 6,000 a year, and will tell you that n.o.body dies of starvation except in novels.

He turns his head from wretches shivering with cold in the street, and is of opinion that a good Government should suppress paupers and all sorts of people who disturb the peace and happiness of the rich. His friends call him 'a good fellow.'

The other type is execrable. The miseries of other people increase his happiness. When he sees a starving-looking man or a sick one, he returns thanks that he is rich and healthy.

He does not avoid the unfortunate: he almost seeks them. The more horrible tales you tell him of poverty, sorrows, disease, wretchedness, the happier he is to feel that he runs no danger of ever encountering such calamities.

Well wrapped up in furs in a good carriage, the sight of a beggar, benumbed with cold, sitting on the stone steps of an empty house, doubles his comfort. He finds his carriage better suspended, and his furs warmer.

He almost believes that the abject poor were invented to make him appreciate his good fortune better. He is not unlike those fanatics of a certain school who believe that the greatest bliss reserved for the elect in heaven is to see their less fortunate brethren burn in h.e.l.l. As I have said, this type of selfish man is execrable.

CHAPTER XVII

EXTENUATING CIRc.u.mSTANCES

THE RIGHT AND WRONG IN THE CASE OF A ROYAL PRINCESS

Since the escapade of the Royal Princess of Saxony with the French tutor Giron, many have asked me, 'Do you approve or forgive her? Do you not think that a woman who can no longer endure life with a sullen and unsympathetic husband has a right to break away from the social conventionalities of life and go her own way in search of happiness?'

The question is not easy to answer. There may be, or there may not be, extenuating circ.u.mstances in the conduct of a woman who deserts her husband, or a man who leaves his wife.

First of all, let me say that I place the consideration of duty far higher than that of personal happiness. Therefore, a man or a woman who abandons a home where there are children of a tender age, children who require the protection of a father and the affection of a mother, which no one can replace, is a coward that should be placed under the ban of society.

I don't care how much a woman may fall in love with a man, or a man with a woman, the duty of either is to remain by the side of their children, to watch over their education, and to see them launched in life. If they shirk this duty, there is no excuse, no atonement for their conduct, which closely borders on crime.

When there are no children, I admit that there may be circ.u.mstances in which I would forgive a man or a woman who leaves a home in which life has become unendurable, in order to seek happiness in the company of a partner who has given proof of love, devotion, and disinterestedness. I might also be prepared to forgive if the children were grown up and able to support themselves.