"Let me go in front," he said, "and spy out the land."
"Then I shall never get away."
He persuaded her to remain, without having formed any distinct purpose of leaving her; he only longed to feel himself free for a time at any rate.
But she was now ready to leave her child, "the most important person of all," as she called it, in order to come out into the world and play a part there. She knew well that he was not going to seek an uncertain fortune but to reap the fruits of a success which he had already gained. The ambitious and independent woman again came into view, perhaps also the envious rival, for she had moments in which she regarded herself as an author, superior to him. That was when her friends in a letter had called her a "genius"; this letter she left lying about that it might be read.
Fortunately it was not possible for her to travel just now, because her parents held her back; she had to content herself with the fact that he, who might be considered as expelled, was leaving her. She became mild, emotional, and sensitive, so that the parting was really painful.
So he went out into the world again. As the steamer in the beautiful autumn evening worked its way up the river, he saw again the cottage, whose windows were lit up. All the evil and ugliness he had seen there was now obliterated; he hardly felt a fleeting joy at having escaped this prison in which he had suffered so terribly. Only feelings of gratitude and melancholy possessed him. For a moment the bond which united him to wife and child drew him so strongly that he wanted to throw himself into the water. But the steamer paddles made some powerful forward strokes, the bond stretched itself, stretched itself, and broke!
"That was an infernal story," exclaimed the postmaster when the reading was over. "What can one say about it, except what you yourself have said in it? But do you think, generally speaking, that marriage will continue to exist?"
"Although I regard wife, child and home as desirable objects," answered the doctor, "I do not think lifelong marriages will be long possible" for in our days the individual—man or woman—is too egotistic and desirous of independence. You see yourself the direction which social evolution is taking. We hear of nothing but discontent and divorce. I grant that conjugal life demands consideration and yieldingness, but to live suppressing one's innermost wishes in an atmosphere of contradiction and contrariety, can only end in producing Furies. You have been married?"
The question came somewhat suddenly and the answer was only given with hesitation: "Yes, I have been married but am not a widower."