Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/69

 you? Of what use am I in your house? Oh, I blush when I think about it!

Axel. What talk! Isn't a man to support his wife?

Bertha. I don't want it. And you, Axel, you must help me. I'm not your equal when it's like that, but I could be if you would humble yourself once, just once! Don't think that you are alone in going to one of the jury to say a good word for another. If it were for yourself, it would be another matter, but for meForgive me! Now I beg of you as nicely as I know how. Lift me from my humiliating position to your side, and I'll be so grateful I shall never trouble you again with reminding you of my position. Never, Axel!

Yet though Bertha gracefully accepts everything Axel does for her, with as little compunction as the ordinary wife, she does not give as much in return as the latter.. On the contrary, she exploits Axel in a thousand ways, squanders his hardearned money, and lives the life of the typical wifely parasite.

August Strindberg could not help attacking with much bitterness such a farce and outrage parading in the disguise of radicalism. For Bertha is not an exceptional, isolated case. To-day, as when Strindberg satirized the all-too-feminine, the majority of so-called emancipated women are willing to accept, like Bertha, everything from the man, and yet feel highly indignant if he asks in return the simple comforts of married life. The ordinary