A Lady in Shadows Read online

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he said. “I’m afraid we run the risk that soon your reputation will be no better than mine.”

  That did matter. I could not pretend that it meant nothing. We would both find it more difficult to obtain a respectable livelihood, and to gain recognition and financing for the work we did, and the research I dreamed we would do. If August was to be exiled and outlawed by his own country . . .

  “We have to speak to my father,” I said, and that thought put a damper on even my body’s jubilation.

  There was a discreet cough from the door. For the third time that day, Docent Althauser had succeeded in sneaking up behind me without my noticing.

  “Mademoiselle Karno. M’sieur Dreyfuss, I’m sorry, but . . .”

  He did not look especially sorry. In fact, it seemed as if he found it offensive that we were embracing like this in his office. Or was it simply that he needed to use it himself?

  “Of course,” I said quickly. “We were just leaving. Weren’t we, August?”

  It seemed to me that the two men glared at each other with an unusual hostility. It was not very courteous of Althauser to call August simply “m’sieur” when he knew very well that August was a professor. Or . . . had been . . .

  Perhaps it was only then that I realized I was no longer engaged to Professor Dreyfuss, the eminent parasitologist from Heidelberg.

  “Please do not forget my little speech on Friday, mademoiselle,” said Althauser. “You were planning to do me the honor . . . ?”

  “Of course,” I avowed, though truthfully I had not actually decided until then.

  September 28, 1894

  The Pro Patria event was not exactly packed, but the hall was more than half full. By far the majority of the attendees were men, clearly of the more well-heeled variety, but a few women had also dared to enter this evening. We were in the palatial headquarters of the Brotherhood of Freedom, a society rarely open to the general public, and still more rarely to the female half. Above us arched a ceiling decorated with oak leaves and grapevines and gold leaf, framing the coat of arms of the brotherhood: a crucifix and a sword crossed on a field of scarlet—or gules, as they would probably insist it was called. I had a faint memory of having been here as a little girl for some kind of Christmas gathering. I must have been five or six, Mama was still alive, and I remember that I loudly informed Saint Nicholas that he did not exist, or so Papa had said. That made several of the other children cry, and we were not invited the following year.

  “Let me start with some simple facts. At the beginning of this century, France was Europe’s most populous nation. That is no longer the case. It took a mere seventy years for both Germany and Russia to pass us, and soon England and Italy will be able to muster greater forces than we in every field of life. The birthrate of our nation is plunging, and as an unavoidable consequence we are on our way to becoming a lesser power. Every year more potential scientists, inventors, visionary businessmen, and generals are born in Germany. More artisans, more laborers, more soldiers. If this development is allowed to continue, in seventeen or eighteen years the Germans will be so superior to us in every military sense, that we are most unlikely to win a war against them. It is that simple, gentlemen. There is a direct link between these cold facts and the tragic defeat in 1871, a defeat that led in turn to a whole generation of young men and women from Alsace and Lorraine growing up under German rule these past twenty-three years. I cannot emphasize this too strongly: That way lies submission, weakness, and ruin.”

  Althauser was no demagogue. He spoke to this audience precisely as he spoke to his students, dryly and factually and without any attempt to move them emotionally with his presentation, in spite of the doomsday language.

  “Furthermore, those among us who bear the most children are by no means the ones best suited to parenthood. It is the lowest class of people—those whose offspring have the slimmest chance of growing up to a good and useful adult existence for the benefit of our nation, those who expose the coming generation to degenerative influences even in the womb. I speak of alcoholism, unhealthy habits, diseases, and the consequences of vice and promiscuity. Were they horses or hounds, no one here would allow them to breed. Yet it is on this poor strain that we base the future of Varonne, and of France. Gentlemen, it cannot be!”

  “Hear, hear!” shouted a member of the audience, but without triggering the applause for which he had probably been angling. Most people merely looked thoughtful.

  “How has it come to this? Why do Frenchwomen of class and breeding no longer have as many children as before? We can place part of the blame on Madame Thomas, Madame Floury, and their ilk—and make no mistake, Varbourg has her own share of these monsters. These infamous Parisian abortionists have been found guilty of terminating more than ten thousand pregnancies. Ten thousand! And since the two angel makers charged well for their criminal services, we can draw the conclusion that it was not women of more modest means who thus murdered the next generation. These women, who could easily feed and raise children, are choosing instead to kill them before they are born. Apparently motherhood is not sacred to them, the child is not a gift. Their husbands—for some of them are married, and the rest must perforce have some kind of relationship to the child’s father—their husbands, I say, have through weakness and convenience allowed the crime to occur. They have permitted their seed to fall barren to the ground, so that the stock they should have left instead has come to naught on the blade of an abortionist’s knife. It is convenience too when men of means, pillars of our society, accede to the wish of their wives not to give birth to more than a single child or two. They ought instead to encourage, advise, and if necessary demand that the woman return to what is, after all, her vital task in life and in society. Failing to insist in this area is misconceived kindness—weakness, even—a weakness that costs our nation dearly.”

  He might as well have hit me.

  I had encountered such words before, but I had not expected to hear them from his mouth.

  My father sat very straight on the bench next to me, and his face had taken on a disapproving cast.

  “This is your teacher?” he asked.

  A rhetorical question, of course.

  It went on. And on. And still I sat there. My skin felt full of pins and needles as if the words were having a physical effect. I think my face was frozen in a grimace of forced politeness. If this was how Althauser really perceived a woman’s “vital task,” why on earth had he agreed to have me for a student? For more than two months, I had tried to live up to everything this man demanded of me—through initial humiliations when he scorned even to look at me, through the nausea and nightmare of vivisection and the ceaseless testing and probing he subjected me to. I had fought to earn his approval and had—or so I thought—finally won it. Time after time he had challenged me to “rise above my sex.” I could certainly understand that, because it was obvious that his view of women in general would have placed me only slightly above the status of a good broodmare.

  How I wished that August were here. I deeply missed his intelligence, his ironic wit, the respect he always showed me as both a person and a woman. But he had crossed the border while he was still able, to explain himself to his grandmother in Heeringen and ask for her understanding. Papa was loyal, but in spite of his bold scientific outlook terribly old-fashioned when it came to me. If he thought Althauser was insulting me, he would no doubt feel the need to defend my honor, but he would never think to leave that defense to me, nor have faith in my ability to carry it out.

  “Should we go?” my father asked.

  I shook my head. “People will stare.”

  Althauser would definitely have noticed if we left, and he was still the only lecturer at the University of Varbourg who was willing to instruct a woman in natural sciences. I had fought so hard for that opportunity. I was not sure if I could bear it if it slipped from my grasp. I did not have to agree with the man’s political ideas, I told myself. His professional skill
was indisputable; I could still learn from him. But the feeling of having been deeply betrayed would not leave me.

  Althauser was demonstrating the defects that an “unsuitable maternal subject” could pass on to her unborn child. He had a series of large posters—“based on photographic records, which you may examine afterward, gentlemen”—showing examples of children who had been born with physical or mental defects.

  “As you can see, degeneration is obvious in the facial features,” he said, and rapped the poster with the quick little smack of his pointer that I knew so well from university lectures. “The mother is an alcoholic, undernourished, and infected with syphilis. I have had the child photographed every month through its first four years, and in spite of good nourishment and care after birth, the defects are clear. The child is witless, it is often ill, both sight and hearing are reduced. At the age of four it is still incapable of speech, cannot dress itself or feed itself with a fork or spoon, and has no control over its bowel movements. Is this how we wish France’s next generation to look?”

  Papa shifted uneasily.

  “He is right as far as the alcohol is concerned,” he whispered to me. “I am convinced that there is a connection between birth defects and the mother’s excessive consumption. And unfortunately we also all too often see the damage done by syphilis.”

  He clearly said it only because he felt obliged to “give the man credit,” but I still took umbrage.

  “So you agree that women should serve as broodmares for the good of the Republic?” I asked, more loudly than I had intended. Several listeners in the row in front of us turned and shushed me.

  My father waited until they had turned away again. “Of course not,” he said quietly. “But . . .”

  “Shhh,” I said. I sensed that this was not a subject I could bear to discuss with him right now.

  I meant to leave as quickly as I might without causing undue notice or offense, but there was a congestion at the door, and my attempt at a timely exit did not succeed.

  “Mademoiselle Karno!” Althauser came rushing down the central aisle. “How good of you to come! And I see you have brought your father. Monsieur le Docteur, you are a highly respected man in university circles. I am so pleased to meet you.”

  Papa stopped as well, of course. I could sense how he stiffened with reserve, and I gave his arm a quick little invisible squeeze. Even though I felt no desire to praise Althauser’s great plan for saving the Fatherland, I did not want Papa to provoke a scene.

  “Sir. The pleasure is entirely mine,” said my father politely, without that pleasure being particularly evident in his features or tone of voice.

  “But your fiancé is not doing me the honor?” Althauser continued.

  “No,” I said. “Unfortunately, he was prevented from coming.”

  “What a shame.” Althauser performed a quick duck of his head, but there was something in his manner that seemed rather more triumphant than regretful.

  An elderly gentleman, resplendent in white tie and tailcoat, headed toward us through the crowd.

  “So this is the young lady you have spoken about,” he said, and clapped Althauser approvingly on the shoulder. “Excellent, excellent. Mademoiselle, my admiration!” He bowed with a precision that would not have been out of place in the officers’ mess, nor indeed in the ballroom, and kissed the air a few centimeters above my right glove. His hair was completely white yet still thick except for a few shiny glimpses of scalp at the crown. His mustache and beard were a few shades darker and the eyebrows still almost black.

  Althauser introduced us.

  “Mademoiselle Karno, this is Vice Marshall Delafontaine. He is one of Pro Patria’s most prominent supporters.”

  “Not at all, not at all. Mademoiselle, there are some modest refreshments in the adjoining rooms. May I have the honor?”

  He offered me his arm, and I felt compelled to curtsey and allow myself to be escorted. I thought my father and Althauser would follow us, but when I looked back, I discovered that Althauser was busy showing Papa the “photographic records” his posters were based on.

  The “adjoining rooms” were smaller than the actual lecture hall but hardly more humble. Gold leaf glittered on ceiling and walls, scarlet silk tapestries flamed in the light from the crystal chandelier, and the floor was covered by the largest and most exquisite Bokhara rug I had ever seen. Champagne flutes awaited on white tablecloths, and small delicate canapés were thickly clustered on tiered porcelain stands.

  “Do you like champagne, mademoiselle?”

  “On special occasions,” I said.

  “Then you must definitely have a glass now, because this is a very special occasion. We have so looked forward to meeting you.”

  “Really?” I did not quite understand the enthusiasm.

  “The professor has not told you as much?” He wrinkled his striking black eyebrows.

  At first, I thought he meant August, but how would the two of them have been acquainted? I was just about to ask before I realized that he meant Althauser.

  “You are a true pioneer among women,” he continued, undaunted. “The first of your kind. It is brave of you to forge a completely new path, but I am sure that many of your sisters will soon follow in your footsteps.”

  “I hope so,” I answered, and tried to look modest even as a small ember of pride rekindled itself and made my heart beat a little faster. What he was saying was of course more or less true—I was the first of my kind, at least in Varbourg. But I had not expected a man with his background and high position and a declared sympathy for the Pro Patria project to look at it this way.

  “Excellent. Excellent. And the professor has assured me that it will occur without any . . . er . . . discomfort for you. Clean, sterile, and without . . . er, unnecessary intimacy.” He smiled avuncularly and patted me on the hand. “One could almost say that you have been chosen to be visited not by the Holy Spirit but by the very Spirit of Science.”

  The doors behind us opened, and ten or eleven gentlemen of similar avoirdupois entered in amorphous chatting, cigar-smoking groups. While I was still trying to work out what he had meant by his spiritual reference, he turned with an expansive gesture to the newcomers.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Here she is at last! Intelligence, beauty, strength—and above all, a sound and rational consciousness in a healthy, young body. A worthy foremother of the nation’s future elite!”

  There must be some misunderstanding. That was the only rational thought in my head. Through the open door, I could see Papa and Althauser approach. Applause and bravas had erupted from the swarm of men around me, several had taken up champagne glasses and raised them toward me, and at least one of them, one of the few young men in the gathering, could no longer look at me without blushing. The air was so thick with masculine approval that it seemed to me that the temperature in the room must objectively have gone up several degrees.

  “There must be . . . there must be some misunderstanding,” I stammered, and tried to find a place to set aside the champagne glass. “I am no . . . foremother. To anyone!” Perhaps I had spoken too softly. Only those in closest proximity lowered their glasses and looked puzzled. I took a deep breath and spoke as loudly as was possible without shouting. “This is a misunderstanding. I am not planning to have children at all!”

  Now they heard me.

  “Pardon . . . ?” said the vice marshall. “But the professor said . . .”

  Althauser forced himself through the crowd.

  “Gentlemen, I am sorry. I think that what I said was that I had finally found a suitable candidate. I am afraid I had not yet fully discussed our future dream with Mademoiselle Karno.”

  He was clearly ill at ease, and more than that. His eyes glared at me with an only partially controlled rage that I had never expected to find in my tight-lipped lecturer, usually so clinically detached.

  I still did not quite understand the details of this “future dream,” but one thing was painfully obviou
s. What the circle of men had applauded was not my intellect, my so-called courage, or my academic ambitions. The only thing that really interested them was my potential ability to pass on a healthy physique and a certain minimum of intelligence to my offspring.

  I could not reach the table. In the end, I simply handed my glass to the shy young man, who took it nervously.

  “Gentlemen,” I said with what shreds of dignity I could muster. “Please excuse me. Good evening.”

  I held my head high as I marched from that room, not just for the sake of my bearing, but to keep my humiliated tears from brimming over and becoming visible to the entire world.

  My father hurried after me as quickly as his injured leg permitted, but I could not slow my pace even for his sake. I do not know if Althauser tried to follow me. He did not, at any rate, succeed in catching up with us before we reached the street. Luckily, a hansom cab was passing by just then, and I ignored every propriety and hailed it myself instead of waiting for Papa to do so.

  “Madeleine!”

  I tore open the door and got in. As soon as I was more or less hidden from public gaze, the tears came pouring out, and I could not even control the loud sobs that made the driver half turn in his seat.

  “Carmelite Street,” my father said to him.

  “Is that all right with you, ma’mselle?”

  “Yes,” I managed.

  The carriage springs groaned, and my father let himself drop clumsily into the seat across from me. He slammed the door shut, knocked on the roof with the cane he was still forced to use, and the hansom set off.

  “Madeleine, what is all this about?”

  I was reminded of how proud I had been, just a few hours ago, when I dressed for the evening. How I had imagined that Papa and Althauser would meet and talk. In my innermost thoughts I had hoped that Althauser would repeat his praise of my intellect to Papa. That they would both have looked at me with the approval I was only now realizing I so badly craved.