Hugo implored her to forget the fact that she would not be able to earn anything in future. Didn’t she do her full share of the work by mothering the baby? Wasn’t that as good as money? Money was, rightly understood, nothing but work. Therefore she paid her share in full.
It took her a long time to get over the fact that he had to keep her. But when the baby came, she forgot all about it. She remained his wife and companion as before in addition to being the mother of his child, and he found that this was worth more than anything else.
A NATURAL OBSTACLE
Her father had insisted on her learning book-keeping, so that she might escape the common lot of young womanhood; to sit there and wait for a husband.
She was now employed as book-keeper in the goods department of the Railways, and was universally looked upon as a very capable young woman. She had a way of getting on with people, and her prospects were excellent.
Then she met the green forester from the School of Forestry and married him. They had made up their minds not to have any children; theirs was to be a true, spiritual marriage, and the world was to be made to realise that a woman, too, has a soul, and is not merely sex. Husband and wife met at dinner in the evening. It really was a true marriage, the union of two souls; it was, of course, also the union of two bodies, but this is a point one does not discuss.
One day the wife came home and told her husband that her office hours had been changed. The directors had decided to run a new night train to Malmo, and in future she would have to be at her office from six to nine in the evening. It was a nuisance, for he could not come home before six. That was quite impossible.
Henceforth they had to dine separately and meet only at night. He was dissatisfied. He hated the long evenings.