If my wife had been interested in any of the important things of the world, I could have been of the greatest assistance to her and she to me. And we should have grown ever closer together in sympathetic companionship. But although she had a good mind—a superior mind—she cared about nothing but the things that interest foolish women and still more foolish men—for a man who cares about splurge and show and social position and such nonsense is less excusable, is more foolish, than a woman of the same sort. Women have the excuse of lack of serious occupation, but what excuse has a man? Still, she was not idle—not for a minute. She was, on the contrary, in her way as busy as I. From time to time she would say to me enigmatically: “You don’t appreciate it, but I am preparing myself to help you fill the station your business ability will win us a chance at.” It seemed to me that I was doing that alone. For what was necessary to fill that station but higher and higher skill as a man of affairs?
When we had made our entry in Brooklyn and had seated ourselves in the state in Bedford Avenue which she had decided for, she showed that she felt immensely proud of herself. We took the house furnished throughout—nicely furnished in a substantial way, for it had been the home of one of the old Brooklyn mercantile families.
“It’s good enough to start with,” said she, casting a critical glance round the sober, homelike dining room. “I shan’t make any changes till I look about me.”
“We couldn’t be better off,” said I. “Everything is perfectly comfortable.” And in fact neither she nor I had ever before known what comfort was. Looking at that house—merely looking at it and puzzling out the uses of the various things to us theretofore unknown—was about as important in the way of education as learning to read is to a child.
“It’s good enough for Brooklyn,” said she. She regarded me with her patient, tender expression of the superior intelligence. “You haven’t much imagination or ambition, Godfrey,” she went on. “But fortunately I have. And do be careful not to betray us before the servants I’m engaging.”
The show part of the house continued to look about as it had when we took possession. But the living part went to pieces rapidly. We had many servants. We spent much money—so much that, if I had not been speculating in various ways, we should have soon gone under. But the results were miserably poor. My wife left everything to her servants and devoted herself to her social career. The ex-Brooklyn society woman at Passaic had not deceived her. No sooner had she joined St. Mary’s than she began to have friends—friends of a far higher social rank than she had ever even seen at close range before. They were elegant people indeed—the wives of the heads of departments in big stores, the families of bank officers and lawyers and doctors. There were even a few rather rich people. My wife was in ecstasy for a year or two. And she improved rapidly in looks, in dress, in manners, in speech, in all ways except in disposition and character.
Except in disposition and character. As we grow older and rise in the world, there is always a deterioration both in disposition and in character. A man’s disposition grows sharper through dealing with, and having to deal sharply with, incompetence. The character tends to harden as he is forced to make the unpleasant and often not too scrupulous moves necessary to getting himself forward toward success. Also, the way everyone tries to use a successful man makes him more and more acute in penetrating to the real motives of his fellow beings, more and more inclined to take up men for what he can get out of them and drop them when he has squeezed out all the advantage—in brief, to treat them precisely as they treat him. But the whole object in having a home, a wife, a family, is defeated if the man has not there a something that checks the tendencies to cynicism and coldness which active life not merely encourages but even compels.
There was no occasion for Edna’s becoming vixenish and hard. It was altogether due to the idiotic and worthless social climbing. She had a swarm of friends, yet not a single friend. She cultivated people socially, and they cultivated her, not for the natural and kindly and elevating reasons, but altogether for the detestable purposes of that ghastly craze for social position. Edna was bitter against me for a long time, never again became fully reconciled, because I soon flatly refused to have anything to do with it.
“They will think there’s something wrong about you, and about me, if you don’t come with me,” pleaded she.
“I need my strength for my business,” said I. “And what do I care whether they think well or ill of me? They don’t give us any money.”