CHAPTER IV.

Although the house to which Mr. Justin Lister now introduced me was more orderly than many which I had observed on the streets through which I had passed, the absence of woman from its walls was still painfully apparent. It was as if warmth and light and flowers and sweet perfumes were suddenly wanting in a place in which you had always been accustomed to find them and to solace yourself with them. Indeed, the suddenness of woman’s flight, if I may so term it, was brought much more sharply to my consciousness by this visit to a house in which she had so recently held sway. There were unmistakable signs on every hand of unfinished feminine occupations. The piano stood open with a sonata by Beethoven lying upon it; artistic needlework with the needles still sticking in it lay in a window-seat, and a half finished sketch upon an easel all bore mute but telling testimony to the irreparable loss of gentle and artistic hands. Plants which had evidently had the cherishing care of feminine tenderness were languishing in a window, and a drooping canary disconsolately buried its head in its feathers in its cage. But that which weighed most heavily upon my sunken spirits was the indescribably pathetic sighing and whining of a large Newfoundland dog as he constantly roamed from room to room in search of a mistress’s caressing hand. I finally had to entreat Mr. Lister with tears in my eyes to put him away where I could not see his grief.

Mr. Lister, as he explained to me, had lost not only his sweetheart and prospective bride by the Great Woman’s Strike, but his mother and two sisters as well. This fact raised the question in my mind as to how the women were supported in their retirement, and I said:

“I can easily understand how the dockmen of London could stand the hunger of protracted idleness with their muscular frames and rude tastes, but how can refined and delicate women undergo the hardships of such a siege?”

“You forget,” said Mr. Lister, “that the London dockmen had many sympathizers who contributed food and money to their cause. The women also have a legion of sympathizers, and if they had not, no man who has a mother or a sister would see them want. The result is that the women are like a vast army which is voluntarily supported by the very persons with whom they are in controversy.”

The meal which Mr. Lister now prepared with his own hands, consisted wholly of canned meats and vegetables which he had procured from a neighbouring grocery. These he had warmed on the stove in their original packages, in order, as he explained, “to save dish-washing.” “Fourier,” he added, “was claimed by his disciples to be a truly great man, and in his ‘Division of Labour’ he did not put dish-washing into the ‘Class of Attractiveness,’ but into the ‘Class of Necessity,’ so you see I am trying to dispense with it altogether.”

But the rudeness of the service or the incompleteness of the meal scarcely provoked a thought, so deeply was my mind engrossed by the consideration of the astounding facts of which I had that day for the first time been made aware. I had read and heard many times before, with a pang, of the breaking up of single households and the parting of husbands and wives by divorce, but to have the ties which bound together all men and all women sundered so suddenly, produced a groping confusion of mind that made it impossible for me to think with any continuity. I mention this fact because it may seem strange to the reader that I did not immediately pursue my inquiry as to the specific nature of the right which woman was asking of man. To tell the truth, that inquiry had for the time being entirely passed out of my mind, and I could only express such fitful ideas as came to me without any premeditation.

When the simple meal was finished and the cans containing it were (manlike) tucked away in the corner of a bookshelf, we settled ourselves in easy chairs for the evening, and Mr. Lister produced cigars. After we had smoked for a few minutes in silence, I said, as the first thought that chanced to come into my mind:

“I understood you to say that the Strike included all classes of women, but of course you excepted the courtesans. I cannot help wondering how the Strike affects their condition.”

“Courtesans!” said Mr. Lister in a tone of deep surprise. “Don’t you know that there are no courtesans?”

“No courtesans!” I exclaimed. I abruptly arose from my chair and walked aimlessly into the centre of the room. Then, partly recovering myself, I walked back and again sat down. The continuous succession of surprises which the day had brought to me had insensibly worn upon my nervous system. I repeated mechanically, more to myself than to Mr. Lister, “No courtesans!”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lister. “I did not think but that you knew it, there are no courtesans. When woman saw that the success of her movement depended upon her solidly combining into one vast Sisterhood, she was confronted at the outset by the fearful chasm which existed between her and her so-called fallen sisters. How could the chasm be bridged? Studying this problem with agonizing earnestness, woman soon saw that the only way to solve it was for woman herself to at once and forever abolish the courtesan class. She clearly recognized the fact, and it was like a revelation to her, that the courtesan was but the extreme victim of an intolerably cruel and satanic dispensation; that the courtesan had been but a little more deeply trodden under foot than her more respectable sister. With this new view woman utterly discarded the idea that the courtesan was a special sinner to be approached with a moral tract and a condescending kind of forgiveness. The courtesan had been unspeakably sinned against, not only by man but by woman as well, and more, perhaps, than any sufferer from cruelty on the globe, deserved the loving pity and succour of her sisters. Seeing this, with real contrition the women decided at once that it was their first business to take these sisters who had been so cruelly perverted by man, to their own bosoms, not as if they were prodigals, but as if they were loved ones who had met with the most cruel blow of misfortune.”

“This, bear in mind, was the first great act in the Woman’s Strike. By an edict which was as effectual and will be as celebrated in history as Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation, woman has forever abolished the courtesan class. There can never be another courtesan, simply because woman has formed a self-protecting league that will never permit it. Dastards there may be among men who will hereafter seek to take advantage of woman’s love, or her sweet complaisance toward man, but if such there be it were better for them if they had never been born. They only will be the sufferers. Held up to the scorn of the universe and forever ostracised by woman, their punishment will be as heavy as Cain’s. But whatever may take place, woman will never again allow one of her own sex to lose caste through man’s treachery. They will defend each other against the world.”

“Can it be possible,” I said, “that so terrible a problem as the social evil, that has been hopelessly discussed by moral philosophers for ages, could be solved so quickly, and by woman, too?”

“And who in God’s name,” said Mr. Lister, “if you stop to think of it, who but woman could ever abolish the courtesan class? Certainly not man. He is constantly creating courtesans. Nothing but a self-protecting league among all women, uniting them into one common sisterhood, could ever have stopped this evil. Moreover, the power to do it came with their combination into a universal sisterhood.”

Too much overwhelmed by the strange things that I had heard to keep up the conversation, I sank into a seemingly hopeless labyrinth of confusing thoughts. This lasted till Mr. Lister, who observed that I was very tired, showed me to my room, having first accomplished the somewhat difficult and precarious task of filling a lamp with coal oil. The room to which he conducted me was evidently the choicest guest-chamber in the house, and it was equally evident that it had not been occupied since the flight of the women. It was in the most exquisite order. No man’s hand could have equalled the artistic precision with which the snowy coverings were laid upon the spotless bed. Weary as I was I gazed upon it with a feeling of profound awe. To lie upon that couch which showed the last skilful touch of a vanished woman’s hand was a profanation of which, thank Heaven, I was not capable. A luxurious rug which lay on the floor beside the bed better accorded with my feeling of deep humility. I stretched myself upon it, and, completely worn out by the fatigues and mental shocks of the day, swiftly sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

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