IV. A CHAT WITH XANTHIPPE
The machine stopped its clicking the moment I spoke, and the words,"Hullo, old chap!" were no sooner uttered than my face grew red as acarnation pink. I felt as if I had committed some dreadful faux-pas, andinstead of gazing steadfastly into the vacant chair, as I had beenwont to do in my conversation with Boswell, my eyes fell, as thoughthe invisible occupant of the chair were regarding me with a look ofindignant scorn.
"I beg your pardon," I said.
"I should think you might," returned the types. "Hullo, old chap! isno way to address a woman you've never had the honor of meeting, even ifshe is of the most advanced sort. No amount of newness in a woman givesa man the right to be disrespectful to her."
"I didn't know," I explained. "Really, miss, I--"
"Madame," interrupted the machine, "not miss. I am a married woman, sir,which makes of your rudeness an even more reprehensible act. It is wellenough to affect a good-fellowship with young unmarried females, butwhen you attempt to be flippant with a married woman--"
"But I didn't know, I tell you," I appealed. "How should I? I supposedit was Boswell I was talking to, and he and I have become very goodfriends."
"Humph!" said the machine. "You're a chum of Boswell's, eh?"
"Well, not exactly a chum, but--" I began.
"But you go with him?" interrupted the lady.
"To an extent, yes," I confessed.
"And does he GO with you?" was the query. "If he does, permit me todepart at once. I should not feel quite in my element in a house wherethe editor of a Sunday newspaper was an attractive guest. If you likethat sort of thing, your tastes--"
"I do not, madame," I replied, quickly. "I prefer the opium habit to theSunday-newspaper habit, and if I thought Boswell was merely a purveyorof what is known as Sunday literature, which depends on the goodness ofthe day to offset its shortcomings, I should forbid him the house."
A distinct sigh of relief emanated from the chair.
"Then I may remain," was the remark rapidly clicked off on the machine.
"I am glad," said I. "And may I ask whom I have the honor ofaddressing?"
"Certainly," was the immediate response. "My name is Socrates, neeXanthippe."
I instinctively cowered. Candidly, I was afraid. Never in my life beforehad I met a woman whom I feared. Never in my life have I wavered in thepresence of the sex which cheers, but I have always felt that while Icould hold my own with Elizabeth, withstand the wiles of Cleopatra, andmanage the recalcitrant Katherine even as did Petruchio, Xanthippe wasanother story altogether, and I wished I had gone to the club. My firstimpulse was to call up-stairs to my wife and have her come down. Sheknows how to handle the new woman far better than I do. She has neverwanted to vote, and my collars are safe in her hands. She has frequentlyobserved that while she had many things to be thankful for, her greatestblessing was that she was born a woman and not a man, and the new womenof her native town never leave her presence without wondering in theirown minds whether or not they are mere humorous contributions of theAlmighty to a too serious world. I pulled myself together as bestI could, and feeling that my better-half would perhaps decline theproffered invitation to meet with one of the most illustrious of hersex, I decided to fight my own battle. So I merely said:
"Really? How delightful! I have always felt that I should like to meetyou, and here is one of my devoutest wishes gratified."
I felt cheap after the remark, for Mrs. Socrates, nee Xanthippe, coveredfive sheets of paper with laughter, with an occasional bracketing of theword "derisively," such as we find in the daily newspapers interspersedthroughout the after-dinner speeches of a candidate of another party.Finally, to my relief, the oft-repeated "Ha-ha-ha!" ceased, andthe line, "I never should have guessed it," closed her immediatecontribution to our interchange of ideas.
"May I ask why you laugh?" I observed, when she had at length finished.
"Certainly," she replied. "Far be it from me to dispute the right ofa man to ask any question he sees fit to ask. Is he not the lord ofcreation? Is not woman his abject slave? I not the whole differencebetween them purely economic? Is it not the law of supply and demandthat rules them both, he by nature demanding and she supplying?"
Dear reader, did you ever encounter a machine, man-made, merely amechanism of ivory, iron, and ink, that could sniff contemptuously? Inever did before this encounter, but the infernal power of either thistype-writer or this woman who manipulated its keys imparted to theatmosphere I was breathing a sniffing contemptuousness which I havenever experienced anywhere outside of a London hotel, and then onlywhen I ventured, as few Americans have dared, to complain of the ducalpersonage who presided over the dining-room, but who, I must confess,was conquered subsequently by a tip of ten shillings.
At any rate, there was a sniff of contempt imparted, as I have said, tothe atmosphere I was breathing as Xanthippe answered my question,and the sniff saved me, just as it did in the London hotel, when Icomplained of the lordly lack of manners on the part of the head waiter.I asserted my independence.
"Don't trouble yourself," I put in. "Of course I shall be interested inanything you may choose to say, but as a gentleman I do not care to puta woman to any inconvenience and I do not press the question."
And then I tried to crush her by adding, "What a lovely day we havehad," as if any subject other than the most commonplace was not demandedby the situation.
"If you contemplate discussing the weather," was the retort, "I wish youwould kindly seek out some one else with whom to do it. I am not one ofyour latter-day sit-out-on-the-stairs-while-the-others-dance girls. Iam, as I have always been, an ardent admirer of principles, of greatproblems. For small talk I have no use."
"Very well, madame--" I began.
"You asked me a moment ago why I laughed," clicked the machine.
"I know it," said I. "But I withdraw the question. There is no greatprinciple involved in a woman's laughter. I have known women who havelaughed at a broken heart, as well as at jokes, which shows that thereis no principle involved there; and as a problem, I have never caredenough about why women laugh to inquire deeply into it. If she'lljust consent to laugh, I'm satisfied without inquiring into the causesthereof. Let us get down to an agreeable basis for yourself. Whatproblem do you wish to discuss? Servants, baby-food, floor-polish, orthe number of godets proper to the skirt of a well-dressed woman?"
I was regaining confidence in myself, and as I talked I ceased to fearher. Thought I to myself, "This attitude of supreme patronage is man'ssafest weapon against a woman. Keep cool, assume that there is no doubtof your superiority, and that she knows it. Appear to patronize her,and her own indignation will defeat her ends." It is a good principlegenerally. Among mortal women I have never known it to fail, and when Ifind myself worsted in an argument with one of man's greatest blessings,I always fall back upon it and am saved the ignominy of defeat. But thistime I counted without my antagonist.
"Will you repeat that list of problems?" she asked, coldly.
"Servants, baby-food, floor-polish, and godets," I repeated, somewhatsheepishly, she took it so coolly.
"Very well," said Xanthippe, with a note of amusement in hermanipulation of the keys. "If those are your subjects, let us discussthem. I am surprised to find an able-bodied man like yourself botheringwith such problems, but I'll help you out of your difficulties if I can.No needy man shall ever say that I ignored his cry for help. What do youwant to know about baby-food?"
This turning of the tables nonplussed me, and I didn't really know whatto say, and so wisely said nothing, and the machine grew sharp in itsclicking.
"You men!" it cried. "You don't know how fearfully shallow you are. Ican see through you in a minute."
"Well," I said, modestly, "I suppose you can." Then calling my feeblewit to my rescue, I added, "It's only natural, since I've made aspectacle of myself."
"Not you!" cried Xanthippe. "You haven't even made a monocle ofyourself."
And here we b
oth laughed, and the ice was broken.
"What has become of Boswell?" I asked.
"He's been sent to the ovens for ten days for libelling Shakespeare andAdam and Noah and old Jonah," replied Xanthippe. "He printed an articlealleged to have been written by Baron Munchausen, in which those fourgentlemen were held up to ridicule and libelled grossly."
"And Munchausen?" I cried.
"Oh, the Baron got out of it by confessing that he wrote the article,"replied the lady. "And as he swore to his confession the jury wereconvinced he was telling another one of his lies and acquitted him, soBoswell was sent up alone. That's why I am here. There isn't a man inall Hades that dared take charge of Boswell's paper--they're all sodeadly afraid of the government, so I stepped in, and while Boswell isbaking I'm attending to his editorial duties."
"But you spoke contemptuously of the Sunday newspapers awhile ago, Mrs.Socrates," said I.
"I know that," said Xanthippe, "but I've fixed that. I get out theSunday edition on Saturdays."
"Oh--I see. And you like it?" I queried.
"First rate," she replied. "I'm in love with the work. I almost wishpoor old Bos had been sentenced for ten years. I have enough of thewoman in me to love minding other people's business, and, as far as Ican find out, that's about all journalism amounts to. Sewing societiesaren't to be mentioned in the same day with a newspaper for scandal andgossip, and, besides, I'm an ardent advocate of men's rights--have beenfor centuries--and I've got my first chance now to promulgate a fewof my ideas. I'm really a man in all my views of life--that's theinevitable end of an advanced woman who persists in following her'newness' to its logical conclusion. Her habits of thought graduallycome to be those of a man. Even I have a great deal more sympathy withSocrates than I used to have. I used to think I was the one that shouldbe emancipated, but I'm really reaching that stage in my manhood where Ibegin to believe that he needs emancipation."
"Then you admit, do you," I cried, with great glee, "that this new-womanbusiness is all Tommy-rot?"
"Not by a great deal," snapped the machine. "Far from it. It's thesalvation of the happy life. It is perfectly logical to say that themore manny a woman becomes, the more she is likely to sympathize withthe troubles and trials which beset men."
I scratched my head and pulled the lobe of my ear in the hope ofloosening an argument to confront her with, not that I disagreed withher entirely, but because I instinctively desired to oppose her aspleasantly disagreeably as I could. But the result was nil.
"I'm afraid you are right," I said.
"You're a truthful man," clicked the machine, laughingly. "You areafraid I'm right. And why are you afraid? Because you are one of thosemen who take a cynical view of woman. You want woman to be a mere lumpof sugar, content to be left in a bowl until it pleases you in yourhigh-and-mightiness to take her in the tongs and drop her into thecoffee of your existence, to sweeten what would otherwise not pleaseyour taste--and like most men you prefer two or three lumps to one."
I could only cough. The lady was more or less right. I am very fond ofsugar, though one lump is my allowance, and I never exceed it, whateverthe temptation. Xanthippe continued.
"You criticise her because she doesn't understand you and your needs,forgetting that out of twenty-four hours of your daily existence yourwife enjoys personally about twelve hours of your society, during eightof which you are lying flat on your back, snoring as though yourlife depended on it; but when she asks to be allowed to share yourresponsibilities as well as what, in her poor little soul, she thinksare your joys, you flare up and call her 'new' and 'advanced,' as ifadvancement were a crime. You ride off on your wheel for forty miles onyour days of rest, and she is glad to have you do it, but when she wantsa bicycle to ride, you think it's all wrong, immoral, and conducive to aweak heart. Bah!"
"I--ah--" I began.
"Yes you do," she interrupted. "You ah and you hem and you haw, but inthe end you're a poor miserable social mugwump, conscious of your ownmagnificence and virtue, but nobody else ever can attain to your loftyplane. Now what I want to see among women is more good fellows. Supposeyou regarded your wife as good a fellow as you think your friend Jones.Do you think you'd be running off to the club every night to playbilliards with Jones, leaving your wife to enjoy her own society?"
"Perhaps not," I replied, "but that's just the point. My wife isn't agood fellow."
"Exactly, and for that reason you seek out Jones. You have a right tothe companionship of the good fellow--that's what I'm going to advocate.I've advanced far enough to see that on the average in the present stateof woman she is not a suitable companion for man--she has none of thequalities of a chum to which he is entitled. I'm not so blind but that Ican see the faults of my own sex, particularly now that I have become sovery masculine myself. Both sexes should have their rights, and thatis the great policy I'm going to hammer at as long as I have Boswell'spaper in charge. I wish you might see my editorial page for to-morrow;it is simply fine. I urge upon woman the necessity of joining in withher husband in all his pleasures whether she enjoys them or not. When helights a cigar, let her do the same; when he calls for a cocktail,let her call for another. In time she will begin to understand him.He understands her pleasures, and often he joins in with them--opera,dances, lectures; she ought to do the same, and join in with him in hispleasures, and after a while they'll get upon a common basis, have theirclubs together, and when that happy time comes, when either one goes outthe other will also go, and their companionship will be perfect."
"But you objected to my calling you old chap when we first met," said I."Is that quite consistent?"
"Of course," retorted the lady. "We had never met before, and, besides,doctors do not always take their own medicine."
"But that women ought to become good fellows is what you're going toadvocate, eh?" said I.
"Yes," replied Xanthippe. "It's excellent, don't you think?"
"Superb," I answered, "for Hades. It's just my idea of how things oughtto be in Hades. I think, however, that we mortals will stick to the oldplan for a little while yet; most of us prefer to marry wives ratherthan old chaps."
The remark seemed so to affect my visitor that I suddenly becameconscious of a sense of loneliness.
"I don't wish to offend you," I said, "but I rather like to keep the twoseparate. Aren't you man enough yet to see the value of variety?"
But there was no answer. The lady had gone. It was evident that sheconsidered me unworthy of further attention.
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