Fair Haven and Foul Strand

by August Strindberg

"No, sir, I was wrong, for in a true marriage husband and wife should have full confidence in each other and be one. And what was the result in this case? During the year they grew apart from one another. She lived in her rose-garden and he in the fields; he had secrets concealed from her and worked desperately without having her as his adviser; he lived his own life apart and she, hers. When they met, he had to pretend to be cheerful, and so their whole life became false. Finally he became tired and withdrew into himself and so did she."

"And so it was all over with their love."

"No, sir; it might have been so, but true love goes through worse fires than these. They loved each other still and that was destined to be proved by the tests which they were to pass through.

"Her child came, and with it commenced a new stage of their life journey. She needed her husband less now for her time was occupied by looking after the child, and her husband felt freer, for so many claims were not made on his tenderness as before. She threw herself heart and soul into the new occupations which absorbed her; she watched through the nights and toiled through the days and would never give up the child to a nurse The contact with reality and the little affairs of life seemed at first to have an intoxicating effect upon her empty soul and she began to find a certain satisfaction in talking with her husband about his fields and their cultivation. But this could not last long. Education lies behind us like the seeds of weeds which may remain in the ground for a year or two, but which only need proper cultivation in order to spring up again. One day she looked in the glass and found that she had become pale, thin, and ugly. She saw that the bloom of her youth was past, and her charms decayed. Then the woman awoke in her or rather one side of the mysterious being which is called a woman: and then came the longing to be beautiful, to please, to feel herself ruling through her beauty. She was now no longer so eagerly occupied with the child as before, and she began to spend more care on her own person. Her husband saw this change with joy, for strange to say although he had at first been glad to observe her desperate zeal about the child and the house, yet when he saw his heart's queen dressed negligently, and marked how pale and wretched she looked, it cut him to the heart. He wished to have back again the charming fairy who had waited with longing at the window for his return home, and at whose feet he wished to worship. So strange is man's heart, and so much leaven does it still retain from the old times of chivalry when woman was regarded as a Madonna.

"But now came something else. During the first period of her confinement he had become a little tired and careless in his habits; he came and went with his hat on, ate his meals at a corner of the table, and took no pains about his dress. And when his wife began to return to the ways of everyday life he forgot to follow her, and to alter his habits. His wife, who was still somewhat sickly, thought she saw in the relaxing of these courtesies a want of love, and an unfortunate chance afforded her an apparent proof that he was tired of her.

"It was an unlucky day! The year was approaching its end when the chief payments would be made. The harvest promised to be bountiful but its overplus could not cover everything. The Knight had to find other means of raising money, and he found them. He ordered some fine timber-trees round the courtyard to be cut down, but in so doing, they came too near the house, so that his wife's favourite lime-tree was also cut down. The Knight did not know that she had a special liking for it, and the act was quite unintentional. His wife had been ill for a week or two, and when she came into the dining-room she saw that the lime-tree had disappeared; she at once believed that it had been cut down to annoy her. She also noticed that her rose-bushes had withered, for no one had had time to think of such trifles amid all the bustle of bringing in the harvest. This seemed to her another act of unkindness and she sent all the available horses and oxen to fetch water.

"Now there intervened a new circumstance to hasten the coming misfortune. The bailiff had come to the castle to wait for the bringing in of the harvest, and had an interview with the Knight's wife just after she had made the two above-mentioned discoveries. They found that they had known each other as children, and a confidential chat followed, which afforded her some amusement. She liked her visitor's rustic but courteous manners, and the comparison she made between his politeness and her husband's boorishness, was not to the advantage of the latter. She forgot that her husband could be as polite as the bailiff when paying a formal visit, and that the bailiff could be as brusque as he in everyday business.

"Thus everything was in train for what should happen when her husband came home. The bailiff had gone and left her alone with her thoughts. When her husband came in, he was cheerful, being pleased to see his wife up again, and because the continued dry weather was good for the harvest, which was all now ready cut and could be brought in in a single day. But his wife, depressed by her thoughts, felt annoyed by his cheerfulness, and now the shots went off, one after the other. She asked about her lime-tree, and he said he had cut it down because he required timber; she then asked why he must cut down 'just' the lime-tree which shaded her window; he answered that he had not cut down just that one, but all of them together.

"Then she began about the rose-bushes. He replied that he had never promised to water them. She, having no answer to this, discovered that he was wearing greased boots, and immediately remarked upon it. He acknowledged his inadvertence and was about to repair it on the spot by drawing them off, but she became furious at such an act of discourtesy. Hard words passed between them and she declared that he loved her no more. Then the Knight answered somewhat in this way: 'I don't love you, you say, because I work for you and don't sit and gossip by your embroidery frame; I don't love you because I am hungry through neglecting food; I don't love you because I don't change my boots when I come for a minute into the room. I don't love you, you say! Oh, if you only knew how much I loved you!'

"To this his wife replied: 'before we married you loved me and at the same time gossiped by my embroidery frame, took off your boots when you came in, and showed me politeness. What has happened then, to make you change your behaviour?'