36

The New Woman

I’ve read so many books in my life, and I read myself into each heroine, so that now I don’t even know who I am!

C. says that he’ll show me who I am. He knows every breath, every nerve in my body. He says he’ll need to devote more time to know my soul. He’s never encountered a thing in his life as complicated as my soul. And he’s met many souls; he’s met souls, as he says, “by the bushels.” He studies the psychology of every living thing.

He says that I have a very rich psychology. It will take him some time to unlock it. He’s going to examine and analyze, taking care to study every corner of my soul, every feature of my body.

Toward that goal—of studying me—he had reversed his collar to the clean, white side and trimmed his fingernails. He lowered himself to the floor next to where I sat on the old, unsteady, unsanitary chair and wrapped his arms around my legs.

He began his examination.

“Why do you need to examine my legs?” I asked. He answered that the most important things always start from the bottom up. Take, for instance, the French Revolution, or the battle that the first American colonists fought for independence from England. In Russia the revolution was led from the top down, from the intelligentsia, and that’s what was wrong with it.

“How does starting from the bottom lead to those in power granting rights?” I asked. He answered that it had to do with my power to grant what is right. “We have something in us with the power to make us powerless, and we must surrender to the power of that powerlessness.”

“We’re forced to surrender?”

“No, we do it willingly. We become convinced. All I’m doing is telling you about it, not forcing you.”

I’m afraid he wants to do more than tell. He came to see me the morning after Rae was here. He said he’d only come to tell me that he’d asked Rae for my address so he could come to tell me that he wouldn’t say a single word about what happened between us at the horrible intellectuals’ apartment. But after that he said so much more about it! He told me it was all a misunderstanding. And I left in such a huff! As though the whole world were chasing me! He went back to see me at the time we’d agreed on, knocked on the door, and the landlady told him that his “wife” had left. He could go look for me if he wanted to—that disgraceful girl, she said. He was so annoyed to have that nobody see how he’d knocked on the door and I hadn’t answered. “But I found you in the end, darling!” he ended his reproachful speech triumphantly.

“No ‘darling,’ if you please,” I responded in sarcastic English.

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” He matched my English with his own. “Of course I won’t use such a familiar term. I’ll only say ‘darling’ when the lights are low.”

I decided for myself: preparedness; watchful waiting. He can study me, and, while he does, I’ll study him.

C. says that I’m conservative. I don’t understand the New Woman and her modern strivings. I should get to know her. I could learn something.

I tried to find a way to meet this New Woman. Not personally, of course. I’d learn about her from what great people have to say about her, even if they are men. Sometimes men have more to say about women than women have to say about themselves. And sometimes a woman knows more about a man than he does. But a woman doesn’t say everything she knows. She must be circumspect. A man’s not afraid of embarrassing himself.

In an article by Lillian Kisliuk I learned many great men’s ideas about women. Here are some of the quotes:

Rudolf Virchow says: “Gentleness is part of a woman’s character. It goes together with the gentleness of her body.”

Havelock Ellis says: “Nervous irritability is women’s primary characteristic.”

August Ferdinand Möbius says: “Women are very conservative and hate all innovation.”

Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder says: “The spirit of revolution broods over the female sex.”

Heinrich Heine says: “The element of freedom is always alive and active in the body of women.”

Havelock Ellis (again) says: “Under ordinary circumstances a woman can do as much work as a man, but she cannot work under high pressure.”

W. O. von Horn says: “When it is a question of fulfilling very heavy requirements the female is often far superior to the male and shows a tenacity and endurance which put him to shame.”

Hermann Lotze says: “The female hates analysis and is therefore incapable of distinguishing falsehood from truth.”

Pierre Lafitte argues that the female prefers analysis, but the male prefers the observation of the relations between things.

Cesare Lombroso further claims that in synthesis and abstract reasoning the female intelligence is defective. Its strength lies in acute analysis and in the vivid comprehension of details.

Friedrich Nietzsche says: “Those who know how to discriminate will perceive that women have intelligence and men emotion and passion.”

Richard von Krafft-Ebing says, “Certainly the inward tendency of a woman’s heart is toward monogamy, whilst a man is inclined toward polygamy.”

Laura Marholm holds the opinion that “woman likes change and variety; man thrives in that monotony which drives a woman to desperation.”

Cesare Lombroso says: “It is quite certain that when another relationship offers her greater practical advantages she will in the cruelest way leave her first love, and often without the least remorse.”

In the past week I’ve read many other things that have been said about women, and I’m not one step closer to learning what C. wants me to know.

He decided it would be better to conduct an intentional program of propaganda, rather than filling me with everything that everyone has to say on the matter. Anyway, he said, my feelings toward life must come from myself, and not from these thinkers. If I don’t have it in me, no amount of reading can help.