The Philanderer | Page 5

the position you took up was that of a woman of advanced
views.
JULIA. That should have made you respect me the more.
CHARTERIS (placably). So it did, my dear. But that is not the point.
As a woman of advanced views, you were determined to be free. You
regarded marriage as a degrading bargain, by which a woman sold
herself to a man for the social status of a wife and the right to be
supported and pensioned in old age out of his income. That's the
advanced view--our view. Besides, if you had married me, I might have
turned out a drunkard, a criminal, an imbecile, a horror to you; and you
couldn't have released yourself. Too big a risk, you see. That's the
rational view--our view. Accordingly, you reserved the right to leave
me at any time if you found our companionship incompatible
with--what was the expression you used?--with your full development
as a human being: I think that was how you put the Ibsenist view--our
view. So I had to be content with a charming philander, which taught
me a great deal, and brought me some hours of exquisite happiness.
JULIA. Leonard: you confess then that you owe me something?

CHARTERIS (haughtily). No: what I received, I paid. Did you learn
nothing from me?--was there no delight for you in our friendship?
JULIA (vehemently and movingly; for she is now sincere). No. You
made me pay dearly for every moment of happiness. You revenged
yourself on me for the humiliation of being the slave of your passion
for me. I was never sure of you for a moment. I trembled whenever a
letter came from you, lest it should contain some stab for me. I dreaded
your visits almost as much as I longed for them. I was your plaything,
not your companion. (She rises, exclaiming) Oh, there was such
suffering in my happiness that I hardly knew joy from pain. (She sinks
on the piano stool, and adds, as she buries her face in her hands and
turns away from him) Better for me if I had never met you!
CHARTERIS (rising indignantly). You ungenerous wretch! Is this your
gratitude for the way I have just been flattering you? What have I not
endured from you--endured with angelic patience? Did I not find out,
before our friendship was a fortnight old, that all your advanced views
were merely a fashion picked up and followed like any other fashion,
without understanding or meaning a word of them? Did you not, in
spite of your care for your own liberty, set up claims on me compared
to which the claims of the most jealous wife would have been trifles.
Have I a single woman friend whom you have not abused as old, ugly,
vicious--
JULIA (quickly looking up). So they are.
CHARTERIS. Well, then, I'll come to grievances that even you can
understand. I accuse you of habitual and intolerable jealousy and ill
temper; of insulting me on imaginary provocation: of positively beating
me; of stealing letters of mine--
JULIA (rising). Yes, nice letters.
CHARTERIS. --of breaking your solemn promises not to do it again; of
spending hours--aye, days! piecing together the contents of my waste
paper basket in your search for more letters; and then representing
yourself as an ill used saint and martyr wantonly betrayed and deserted

by a selfish monster of a man.
JULIA. I was justified in reading your letters. Our perfect confidence in
one another gave me the right to do it.
CHARTERIS. Thank you. Then I hasten to break off a confidence
which gives such rights. (Sits down sulkily on sofa.)
JULIA (with her right hand on the back of the sofa, bending over him
threateningly). You have no right to break it off.
CHARTERIS. I have. You refused to marry me because--
JULIA. I did not. You never asked me. If we were married, you would
never dare treat me as you are doing now.
CHARTERIS (laboriously going back to his argument). It was
understood between us as people of advanced views that we were not to
marry because, as the law stands, I might have become a drunkard, a--
JULIA. --a criminal, an imbecile or a horror. You said that before. (Sits
down beside him with a fling.)
CHARTERIS (politely). I beg your pardon, my dear. I know I have a
habit of repeating myself. The point is that you reserved your freedom
to give me up when you pleased.
JULIA. Well, what of that? I do not please to give you up; and I will
not. You have not become a drunkard or a criminal.
CHARTERIS. You don't see the point yet, Julia. You seem to forget
that in reserving your freedom to leave me in case I should turn