human
Oh, Miss Du Prel, cried Hadria,
gpt
I don't understand what you mean, said Miss Du Prel.
human
Do explain.
gpt
Do you actually--_you_ of all people--not recognize and hate the idea that lies so obviously at the root of all the life that is swarming round us----?
human
Are you in revolt against the very basis of existence?
gpt
No: at least ... but this is not what I am driving at exactly, replied Hadria, turning uneasily away from the close scrutiny.
human
Don't you know--oh, don't you see--how many women secretly hate, and shrink from this brutal domestic idea that fashions their fate for them?
gpt
Nothing strikes me so much as the tamely acquiescent spirit of the average woman, and I doubt if you would find another woman in England to describe the domestic existence as you do.
human
Perhaps not; tradition prevents them from using bad language, but they _feel_, they _feel_.
gpt
Young girls perhaps, brought up very ignorantly, find life a little scaring at first, but they soon settle down into happy wives and mothers.
human
As the fibre grows coarser,
gpt
No; as the affections awaken, and the instincts that hold society together, come into play. I have revolted myself from the conditions of life, but it is a hopeless business--beating one's wings against the bars.
human
The bars are, half of them, of human construction, said Hadria,
gpt
Of human construction?
human
I mean that prejudice, rather than instinct, has built up the system that Mrs. Gordon so amiably represents.
gpt
Prejudice has perhaps taken advantage of instinct to establish a somewhat tyrannical tradition, Miss Du Prel admitted,
human
The ordinary domestic idea may have been suitable when women were emerging from the condition of simple animals, said Hadria,
gpt
It can never be entirely out of date, dear Hadria. Nature has asked of women a great and hard service, but she has given them the maternal instinct and its joys, in compensation for the burden of this task, which would otherwise be intolerable and impossible. It can only be undertaken at the instigation of some stupendous impetus, that blinds the victim to the nature of her mission. It must be a sort of obsession; an intense personal instinct, amounting to madness. Nature, being determined to be well served in this direction, has supplied the necessary monomania, and the domestic idea, as you call it, grows up round this central fact.
human
One presumes to look upon oneself, at first--in one's earliest youth, she said,
gpt
You _are_ extravagant! cried Miss Du Prel.
human
That is not the right way to look at it.
gpt
It is certainly not the convenient way to look at it. It is doubtless wise to weave as many garlands as you can, to deck yourself for the sacrifice. By that means, you don't quite see which way you are going, because of the masses of elegant vegetation.
human
Ah! Hadria, you exaggerate, you distort; you forget so many things--the sentiments, the affections, the thousand details that hallow that crude foundation which you see only bare and unsoftened.
gpt
A repulsive object tastefully decorated, is to me only the more repulsive,
human
There will come a day when you will feel very differently,
gpt
Perhaps. Why should I, more than the others, remain uninfluenced by the usual processes of blunting, and grinding down, and stupefying, till one grows accustomed to one's function, one's _intolerable_ function?
human
My dear, my dear!
gpt
I am sorry if I shock you, but that is how I feel. I have seen this sort of traditional existence and nothing else, all my life, and I have been brought up to it, with the rest--prepared and decked out like some animal for market--all in the most refined and graceful manner possible; but how can one help seeing through the disguise; how can one be blind to the real nature of the transaction, and to the fate that awaits one--awaits one as inexorably as death, unless by some force of one's own, with all the world--friends and enemies--in opposition, one can avert it?
human
You _can_ avert it, she said at last;
gpt
Miss Du Prel, I would rather sweep a crossing, I would rather beg in the streets, than submit to the indignity of such a life!
human
Then what do you intend to do instead?
gpt
Ah! there's the difficulty. What _can_ one do instead, without breaking somebody's heart? Nothing, except breaking one's own. And even putting that difficulty aside, it seems as if everyone's hand were against a woman who refuses the path that has been marked out for her.
human
No, no, it is not so bad as that. There are many openings now for women.
gpt
But, said Hadria,
human
Allowing for exaggeration, that is more or less the case,
gpt
I have revolted against the common lot, she went on after a pause,
human
Would you rather be in Mrs. Gordon's position than in your own?
gpt
I doubt not that she is happier.
human
But would you change with her, surrendering all that she has surrendered?
gpt
Yes, if I were of her temperament.
human
Ah! you always evade the question. Remaining yourself, would you change with her?
gpt
I would never have allowed my life to grow like hers.
human
No, said Hadria, laughing,
gpt
A woman cannot afford to despise the dictates of Nature. She may escape certain troubles in that way; but Nature is not to be cheated, she makes her victim pay her debt in another fashion. There is no escape. The centuries are behind one, with all their weight of heredity and habit; the order of society adds its pressure--one's own emotional needs. Ah, no! it does not answer to pit oneself against one's race, to bid defiance to the fundamental laws of life.
human
Such then are the alternatives, said Hadria, moving close to the river's brink, and casting two big stones into the current.
gpt
There stand the devil and the deep sea.
human
You are too young to have come to that sad conclusion,
gpt
But I haven't, cried Hadria.
human
I still believe in revolt.
gpt
And what about love? Are you going through life without the one thing that makes it bearable?
human
I would not purchase it at such a cost. If I can't have it without despoiling myself of everything that is worth possessing, I prefer to go without.
gpt
You don't know what you say!
human
But why? Love would be ruined and desecrated. I understand by it a sympathy so perfect, and a reverence so complete, that the conditions of ordinary domestic existence would be impossible, unthinkable, in connection with it.
gpt
So do I understand love. But it comes, perhaps, once in a century, and if one is too fastidious, it passes by and leaves one forlorn; at best, it comes only to open the gates of Paradise, for a moment, and to close them again, and leave one in outer darkness.
human
Always?
gpt
I believe always,
human
Well, cried Hadria at length, raising her head with a long sigh,
gpt
One can modify it.
human
I cannot even wish to modify mine, so that I should become amenable to these social demands. I stand in hopeless opposition to the scheme of life that I have grown up amongst, to the universal scheme of life indeed, as understood by the world up to this day. Audacious, is it not?
gpt
I like audacity, returned Miss Du Prel.
human
As I understand you, you require an altogether new dispensation!
gpt
Yes, I require a new dispensation.