[VII]
Success followed success. All our debts were paid. It rained money. But although a great proportion of my income went towards household expenses, our financial position was chaos. Marie, who kept the accounts and had the cash, was always clamouring for more money, and her constant demands were the cause of violent scenes.
Her contract with the theatre was not renewed. It goes without saying that I had to bear the consequences. It was all my fault!... If only she had never married me!... The part which I had written for her was forgotten; she had indeed completely ruined it, for she had bungled it, and played it without the slightest conception of its subtleties.
About this time much interest was aroused in what has been called the "woman question." The famous Norwegian male blue-stocking had written a play on the subject, and all feeble minds were obsessed by a perfect mania of finding oppressed women everywhere. I fought against those foolish notions, and consequently was dubbed "mysogynist," an epithet which has clung to me all my life.
A few home-truths on the occasion of our next quarrel threw Marie into a violent fit of hysterics. It was just after the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century in the treatment of neurotic diseases had been made. The remedy was as simple as all great truths.
When the screams of the patient were at their loudest, I seized a water-bottle and thundered the magic words—
"Get up, or I shall pour this water over you!"
She stopped screaming at once—and shot at me a look of sincere admiration, mingled with deadly hatred.
For a moment I was taken aback, but my reawakened manhood would not be denied....
Again I lifted the water-bottle—