once more the physician felt the young woman’s pulse. “but it’s impossible: you must not go out to-day; you are running the risk of a relapse. you stay in your beautiful home that you have furnished so cosily, so comfortably, and with such good taste. i have no objection, however, to your inviting a few friends, having a little music, chatting, gossiping, but—stay home!”
the pretty self-willed woman pursed her lips at this and though her grimace was very becoming to her it seemed a little to vex her old doctor who had known her from her infancy. somewhat irritated, he continued:—
“i don’t just know what you mean by the moue. must i point out the dangers of exposing yourself to a ‘fresh cold’? do you insist on making a sunday of every week-day? first, it’s a café, then, a restaurant! from a hot room into the cold, moist, windy atmosphere of a winter night!”
“but staying home is so stale and unprofitable,” wailed the young woman. “home! i’m home all the live-long week! sunday, one wants a change! i want to see human beings! you are very disagreeable to-day, doctor!”
[pg 99]
the old doctor gently patted the young woman’s cheek. “still the same self-willed, obstinate child that will butt its head against the wall. ah, you seem to have forgotten how nice and sociable your parents’ home was. those never-to-be-forgotten sundays! how we used to congregate there, a group of intimates—the young ones chatting and singing while the older ones played cards,—and every sunday was a real holiday! and when things got a little more lively, then young and old romped together. do you remember? now and then someone would read us a new poem or the latest novel. how we did enjoy those sundays! and how unforced and unconventional it all was! we would get our cup of tea or coffee and were as happy as happy as could be. but the things that are going on now seem to me, in my r?le as physician, to be a kind of neurosis, a something that i should call ‘the flight from home!’”
“but, my dear doctor, must it be a neurosis? is it necessary to brand everything as a disease?”
“but it is a disease and its character as such is very clearly established by this one element: its compulsive character. the flight from the home is a compulsive idea, that is, an idea against which logic, persuasion, and appeals are of no avail.”
“i think you are going too far,” replied the young woman. “if i insist upon going to the café to-day, i do it not because i do not like my home; [pg 100]no, i do it because at the café i get a kind of stimulation which i do not get at home. there i can look through various journals and papers that i cannot afford to have at home. i get a chance to see friends and acquaintances whom i could not receive at home so often. and the main thing, at any rate for a young woman who still wishes to please—and that, i am sure you won’t resent, you dear old psychologist!—the main thing is that there i see new people and—am seen by them. i know that in return i must put up with a few unpleasantnesses. yes, there is the stuffy and smoky atmosphere, the continual din and noise, and so forth. but i really do think that we moderns need these things. we are not born to rest.”
the physician shook his head.
“no! never! you will pardon, i hope, my telling you that yours is a very superficial psychology and does not go down to the heart of the problem. to the modern civilized human being his home seems to be an extremely disagreeable place. all his life he is fleeing from his home, from his environment, and—yes!—even from himself. an inner restlessness, a discontent that cannot be quenched, a nervous stress permeates the people of our time. what they possess seems to them stale, worthless. what they pursued madly disappoints them when they have attained it. they crave for change because they do not know how to make the best use of the present and of their possessions. [pg 101]how else can we understand the phenomenon that the whole world is happy to get away from the home and those who are incapable of running away long to do so? for, i am sure if you will give it careful thought you will confess that you call ‘experience’ only what happens to you away from home. the days at home don’t count. am i right?”
“only partly so, my dear doctor. it does not tally with the facts—because nothing can be experienced at home. and i would be only too happy to receive my friends here daily, if it were possible. don’t you know that servants would rebel at it? that they want to have their day off? that i must not expect them to do such work as waiting on my guests every sunday? why even on week days the invitation of guests causes a little rebellion in the ordinary household!”
“and why must there be invitations? must your visitors always be guests? just look at paris! there you may drop in on any of your acquaintances after 9 p.m. you may or you may not get a cup of tea. you chat a few hours and then depart. with us that’s impossible, because our so-called ‘teas’ have assumed proportions which were formerly unknown. you invite one to come and have tea with you but instead of that you serve a luncheon and make a veritable banquet of it, going to a lot of trouble and expense, a course which must have bad consequences.”
[pg 102]
“do you know, doctor, i think you are a magician! it’s only conventional politeness that makes us receive our guests cordially. but you must serve your friends something when you invite them for a little chat, mustn’t you?”
“there you are again! how beautifully you chatter away so superficially! no, my dear! nowadays one no longer invites friends to spend a pleasant time with them, but to show them a new gown or to impress them with the new furnishings. the main thing is to poison the friend’s peace of mind. if the guest’s face betrays all the colours of envy then the hostess has attained the acme of delight. one might almost say that their dissatisfaction with their lot in life drives human beings on to stir up discontent in the hearts of others. this sowing of dragon’s teeth bears evil fruit. for at the next ‘tea’ the friend has a more beautiful dress, perhaps some other new sensation, and her husband’s achievements and income mount to supernatural heights, if one is to believe the hostess’ eloquent speeches. finally, there is no possibility of out-trumping her and there is nothing left to do but, in a more moderate tone, to fight out the rivalry on a neutral soil. the restaurant or the café is this neutral soil.”
“and what are your objections to this neutral soil?”
“my objections? the people lose the greatest pleasure that they could derive from one another. [pg 103]at home it must happen now and then that the walls which separate the inmates from one another fall, the wrappings that encase our inmost being burst, and soul speaks to soul. at home it is possible to devote the time to the nobler delights that life has to offer. at one time there can be—as there was in your own parents’ home—a reading, on another occasion singing or music. and would it be such a terrible misfortune to spend one’s holiday with one’s family, to be one with them, reviewing the week that is past or playing with the children and being a child again? don’t you see that you are giving up the gold of home-life and pursuing the fool’s-gold of pleasure outside the home? you do see it, you know i am right, and a little voice within you implores and pleads: ‘stay home! stay home! here you are safe and comfortable!’ but another power, a power that is stronger than you, drives you out, rushes you away from peace and quiet to restlessness, and whirls you about. and this whirl, you call ‘life.’ what have these empty pleasures to offer us? what inspiration for the work-a-day life do they leave behind? is this anything less than just simply killing the hours? i don’t want to spin out the old stuff about the dangers of pleasures, getting over-heated, catching cold, overtaxing one’s nervous energies, losing one’s sleep, etc. as to these things, i must admit, there is a great deal of exaggeration. one ought not to fly from pleasures. but they ought to serve as inspiring [pg 104]exceptions to break, as it were, the day, just as a trip does.”
“but, my dear doctor, now you’ve caught yourself in your own springe. is not a trip a flight from the home?”
the young woman laughed hilariously. but the doctor—now that he had assumed the r?le of preacher—did not permit himself to be put off or confused.
“of course, the ordinary journey does belong to my theme. a trip may, in fact, constitute the crisis in our neurosis. a crisis that we must all go through, for we all—i am sorry to say, i too—suffer from this compulsive idea. as after every other crisis the invalid is for a time restored to health, so is it also after a trip. but only for a short time. a few weeks—and the compulsive idea is again manifest and the flight from the home begins again.”
“come, now, doctor!” interrupted the convalescent, “travelling is a necessity. as you so aptly said, we want to break the monotony of the day—to get out of the customary environment.”
“that’s just what i want to designate as the chief symptom of the neurosis of our time. everyone wants to get away from the customary environments. everybody makes attempts at flight. whether they succeed depends upon other social factors. why is the customary environment repugnant to you?”
“because i crave a change. i do not know [pg 105]why. but i have an instinctive longing for it.”
“there you have it, my dear. it’s just as i said: it’s a compulsive idea. the flight from one’s environment, from one’s home, from one’s furniture, is the same as the flight from one’s house. to me every piece of furniture that i have used a long time has become so dear and so much a part of myself that i do not like to give them away and can only with difficulty part with them. and if i were to come into possession of a vast fortune to-day i could not renounce these dear associates to whom i am bound by so many memories. with all their shortcomings and modesty they are a thousand times dearer to me than the most beautiful english or secessionist furnishings. i’ll confess that in these matters i am not at all modern. for the moderns are glad when they can change something, and so they change their furniture, their carpets, their pictures, etc. about every ten years there is a change in the fashions and your housewife cannot bear not to be in style. one day you enter her house and you find new rooms. and just as the furnishings in the house are changed from time to time, so the residence too must be changed frequently—in fact, everything that can be changed is changed: the servants, the family physician, the music teacher, and, where it is possible, the husband and even the wife.”
the young woman reflected a little. “there is much truth in what you say. it is in fact a [pg 106]tremendous flight that we see enacted everywhere about us, a flight from oneself and from one’s environment. if i were to judge by my own feelings i should say that this fleeing has its origin in our life’s needs. we women all have a large ‘nora’ element in us and are waiting for the ‘miracle.’ inasmuch as we cannot find it at home we look for it elsewhere. believe me, doctor, most women do not fall because of sensual appetites. no! they fall because they crave for some experience. we experience too little. the monotony of the days asphyxiates us. and this great whirl of life, this senseless running after a change—as you call it—is only because our hearts are discontented, because our spirits are wrecked by the monotony and insipidity of our lives. do you think that it will ever be different?”
“why not, pray? some day a great physician must arise, an apostle of human love, whose voice will pierce the whirl and who will be capable of opening man’s stupid eyes: a new religion would do it, a religion that would satisfy all of humanity’s longings, a religion of work and the joy of life. our time is ripe for a messiah. whether he will come——.”
“ah, he has come,” said the charming young woman, her face beaming. “for me you are the messiah of domesticity! you have cured me of my flight neurosis. i shall stay home to-day, and as often as i can do so.”
the old doctor took his leave with animated [pg 107]steps. with the power of his words he had once again reformed a human being.
but his joy was short-lived. that afternoon, as he walked by a café on the main thoroughfare his eyes fell on a vivacious group within. and there he saw his recalcitrant patient who had evidently gone out only to get a chance to discuss thoroughly with her friends the theme: “the flight from the house.”