What is wrong with marriage,anyhow?I find myself pondering this question so often,when reading high-class literature.I put it to myself again the other evening,during a performance of Faust.Why could not Faust have married the girl?I would not have married her myself for any consideration whatsoever;but that is not the argument.Faust,apparently,could not see anything amiss with her.
Both of them were mad about each other.Yet the idea of a quiet,unostentatious marriage with a week's honeymoon,say,in Vienna,followed by a neat little cottage orne,not too far from Nurnberg,so that their friends could have come out to them,never seems to have occurred to either of them.
There could have been a garden.Marguerite might have kept chickens and a cow.That sort of girl,brought up to hard work and by no means too well educated,is all the better for having something to do.Later,with the gradual arrival of the family,a good,all-round woman might have been hired in to assist.Faust,of course,would have had his study and got to work again;that would have kept him out of further mischief.The idea that a brainy man,his age,was going to be happy with nothing to do all day but fool round a petticoat was ridiculous from the beginning.Valentine--a good fellow,Valentine,with nice ideas--would have spent his Saturdays to Monday with them.Over a pipe and a glass of wine,he and Faust would have discussed the local politics.
He would have danced the children on his knee,have told them tales about the war--taught the eldest boy to shoot.Faust,with a practical man like Valentine to help him,would probably have invented a new gun.Valentine would have got it taken up.
Things might have come of it.Sybil,in course of time,would have married and settled down--perhaps have taken a little house near to them.He and Marguerite would have joked--when Mrs.Sybil was not around--about his early infatuation.The old mother would have toddled over from Nurnberg--not too often,just for the day.
The picture grows upon one the more one thinks of it.Why did it never occur to them?There would have been a bit of a bother with the Old Man.I can imagine Mephistopheles being upset about it,thinking himself swindled.Of course,if that was the reason--if Faust said to himself:
"I should like to marry the girl,but I won't do it;it would not be fair to the Old Man;he has been to a lot of trouble working this thing up;in common gratitude I cannot turn round now and behave like a decent,sensible man;it would not be playing the game"--if this was the way Faust looked at the matter there is nothing more to be said.Indeed,it shows him in rather a fine light--noble,if quixotic.
If,on the other hand,he looked at the question from the point of view of himself and the girl,I think the thing might have been managed.All one had to do in those days when one wanted to get rid of the Devil was to show him a sword hilt.Faust and Marguerite could have slipped into a church one morning,and have kept him out of the way with a sword hilt till the ceremony was through.They might have hired a small boy:
"You see the gentleman in red?Well,he wants us and we don't want him.That is the only difference between us.Now,you take this sword,and when you see him coming show him the hilt.Don't hurt him;just show him the sword and shake your head.He will understand."The old gentleman's expression,when subsequently Faust presented him to Marguerite,would have been interesting:
"Allow me,my wife.My dear,a--a friend of mine.You may remember meeting him that night at your aunt's."As I have said,there would have been ructions;but I do not myself see what could have been done.There was nothing in the bond to the effect that Faust should not marry,so far as we are told.The Old Man had a sense of humour.My own opinion is that,after getting over the first annoyance,he himself would have seen the joke.I can even picture him looking in now and again on Mr.and Mrs.Faust.The children would be hurried off to bed.There would be,for a while,an atmosphere of constraint.
But the Old Man had a way with him.He would have told one or two stories at which Marguerite would have blushed,at which Faust would have grinned.I can see the old fellow occasionally joining the homely social board.The children,awed at first,would have sat silent,with staring eyes.But,as I have said,the Old Man had a way with him.Why should he not have reformed?The good woman's unconsciously exerted influence--the sweet childish prattle!One hears of such things.Might he not have come to be known as "Nunkie"?
Myself--I believe I have already mentioned it--I would not have married Marguerite.She is not my ideal of a good girl.I never liked the way she deceived her mother.And that aunt of hers!Well,a nice girl would not have been friends with such a woman.She did not behave at all too well to Sybil,either.It is clear to me that she led the boy on.And what was she doing with that box of jewels,anyhow?She was not a fool.She could not have gone every day to that fountain,chatted with those girl friends of hers,and learnt nothing.She must have known that people don't go leaving twenty thousand pounds'worth of jewels about on doorsteps as part of a round game.Her own instinct,if she had been a good girl,would have told her to leave the thing alone.