An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser (whitelam books .TXT) 📖

it, marriage is a very sacred thing, and children are a blessing⁠—not a curse. And when you went to the altar three months ago you were probably not unaware that you might have to face just such a situation as this. All young married people are, I think.” (“The altar,” thought Roberta sadly. If only it were so.) “Now I know that the tendency of the day in some quarters is very much in this direction, I am sorry to say. There are those who feel it quite all right if they can shirk the normal responsibilities in such cases as to perform these operations, but it’s very dangerous, Mrs. Howard, very dangerous legally and ethically as well as medically very wrong. Many women who seek to escape childbirth die in this way. Besides it is a prison offense for any doctor to assist them, whether there are bad consequences or not. You know that, I suppose. At any rate, I, for one, am heartily opposed to this sort of thing from every point of view. The only excuse I have ever been able to see for it is when the life of the mother, for instance, depends upon such an operation. Not otherwise. And in such cases the medical profession is in accord. But in this instance I’m sure the situation isn’t one which warrants anything like that. You seem to me to be a strong, healthy girl. Motherhood should hold no serious consequences for you. And as for money reasons, don’t you really think now that if you just go ahead and have this baby, you and your husband would find means of getting along? You say your husband is an electrician?”

“Yes,” replied Roberta, nervously, not a little overawed and subdued by his solemn moralizing.

“Well, now, there you are,” he went on. “That’s not such an unprofitable profession. At least all electricians charge enough. And when you consider, as you must, how serious a thing you are thinking of doing, that you are actually planning to destroy a young life that has as good a right to its existence as you have to yours⁠ ⁠…” he paused in order to let the substance of what he was saying sink in⁠—“well, then, I think you might feel called upon to stop and consider⁠—both you and your husband. Besides,” he added, in a diplomatic and more fatherly and even intriguing tone of voice, “I think that once you have it it will more than make up to you both for whatever little hardship its coming will bring you. Tell me,” he added curiously at this point, “does your husband know of this? Or is this just some plan of yours to save him and yourself from too much hardship?” He almost beamed cheerfully as, fancying he had captured Roberta in some purely nervous and feminine economy as well as dread, he decided that if so he could easily extract her from her present mood. And she, sensing his present drift and feeling that one lie more or less could neither help nor harm her, replied quickly: “He knows.”

“Well, then,” he went on, slightly reduced by the fact that his surmise was incorrect, but none the less resolved to dissuade her and him, too: “I think you two should really consider very seriously before you go further in this matter. I know when young people first face a situation like this they always look on the darkest side of it, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I know my wife and I did with our first child. But we got along. And if you will only stop now and talk it over, you’ll see it in a different light, I’m sure. And then you won’t have your conscience to deal with afterwards, either.” He ceased, feeling reasonably sure that he had dispelled the fear, as well as the determination that had brought Roberta to him⁠—that, being a sensible, ordinary wife, she would now desist of course⁠—think nothing more of her plan and leave.

But instead of either acquiescing cheerfully or rising to go, as he thought she might, she gave him a wide-eyed terrified look and then as instantly burst into tears. For the total effect of his address had been to first revive more clearly than ever the normal social or conventional aspect of the situation which all along she was attempting to shut out from her thoughts and which, under ordinary circumstances, assuming that she was really married, was exactly the attitude she would have taken. But now the realization that her problem was not to be solved at all, by this man at least, caused her to be seized with what might best be described as morbid panic.

Suddenly beginning to open and shut her fingers and at the same time beating her knees, while her face contorted itself with pain and terror, she exclaimed: “But you don’t understand, doctor, you don’t understand! I have to get out of this in some way! I have to. It isn’t like I told you at all. I’m not married. I haven’t any husband at all. But, oh, you don’t know what this means to me. My family! My father! My mother! I can’t tell you. But I must get out of it. I must! I must! Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know! I must! I must!” She began to rock backward and forward, at the same time swaying from side to side as in a trance.

And Glenn, surprised and startled by this sudden demonstration as well as emotionally affected, and yet at the same time advised thereby that his original surmise had been correct, and hence that Roberta had been lying, as well as that if he wished to keep himself out of this he must now assume a firm and even heartless attitude, asked solemnly: “You are not married, you say?”

For answer now Roberta merely shook her head negatively and continued to cry. And at last gathering the full import