IV

The Obedient Woman

I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE owner, if you please."

The owner bowed.

"Well?" said the woman, after a pause.

"What is it Madame wishes to say?"

"Oh, are you the owner? You look like a doorman."

"I am."

"Well, I want the master of the house. I was told I'd be able to speak to him. He has a room ready for me, and I want to ask him about it."

"Yes. Well, as a matter of fact, there are two rooms ready for you," replied the owner. "You'll have to make a choice which one you prefer. They're different prices, of course."

"Then take me to the owner, so that I can discuss it."

"I'm afraid that you'll have to talk to me. My Father has put everything into my hands, and speaking to me is the same as speaking to him. I'm sorry, but you'll have to take my word for it that for practical purposes, I am the owner of this establishment."

The woman protested for several more minutes, but the owner's calm replies were always the same, and so she finally said, "Very well, I guess you'll have to do for now. But later I'll be wanting to talk to that father of yours to see if he can make better arrangements for greeting people. I did think that here, of all places, appearances wouldn't be deceptive."

"It's been my experience," replied the host, "that at least expectations are apt to be very deceptive."

"Well then, if in spite of appearances you are the owner, then you know I've been negotiating for a room for a very long time--since as long as I found out about the mansion."

"Yes, we've been aware of that."

"We? You made a bit of a slip there, didn't you? --But since I apparently have to talk to you, then I'd like you to look at this: I've been saving up for this moment for years and years, and I've made up this list that I'm sure you'll be interested in." She pulled out a sheaf of computer printout and handed it over to be examined.

The owner looked it over briefly, and said, "It doesn't seem quite to match our own list; but we can let that pass for now. It's the price of one of the rooms, in any case, whichever list is accurate."

"Well, I'm sure mine is; I've been very careful about it."

"I can see that. You seem to have taken care to document everything you've done and put a value on it."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. I was just remarking. It's the values, actually, that don't exactly jibe with ours."

"Well I can justify absolutely everything that's there. Show me one thing you don't agree with."

"It really doesn't make any difference, Madam," said the owner. "Whichever of us is right, this wouldn't change the nature of the room you ordered."

"Why is that?"

"Because the specifications of the room are not determined by price. We build the room to your specifications, whatever price you have paid for it."

"That doesn't seem fair to me," she said. "I mean, if you work harder for something, you ought to get something better."

"But if you get exactly what you asked for, no matter what you ask, why should you get more than that just because you've worked harder?"

"Because a person should get what she deserves!"

"Oh, as to that," said the owner, "you may set your mind at ease. In one sense, you get exactly what you deserve--at a minimum. Occasionally more."

"That's another thing. If one person gets more than he deserves and the other person doesn't, how fair is that?"

"There is a point of view, of course," he said, "from which it isn't fair. But that's the way it is."

"I don't see why it has to be that way."

"It doesn't have to be. I just said that that's the way it is."

The woman looked as if she were going to continue arguing, but then suddenly said, "Well, we can discuss all this after you show me the rooms I've ordered."

"Right this way, then, Madame," said the owner with a bow, and led her downstairs and down a rather dark corridor. He opened the door to a room and stepped back for her to precede him inside. "This is the room you paid for," he said.

"This tiny place? Why there's hardly any light in it at all!" She went over to the window. "--And no view to speak of. What are those buildings over there?"

"The stables, Madame."

"That's an insult!"

"I'm sorry, Madame, but you wanted to see the room you paid for."

"This is an outrage!" she sputtered. "Now I really must see the real owner! He can't have prepared this for me, after all I've done! Why, I did every single thing he asked!"

"That's true. You did everything that was demanded of you."

"Well then, I should get what I deserve!"

"Yes, you should."

"Then show it to me!"

"I'm afraid, Madame, that this is what it is. You see, you did exactly what was asked, but no more than that--"

"But I was never asked to do more!"

"That's true. No one is ever asked to do more than one is asked. But it is possible to do it, nevertheless."

"But that's not fair! If you expect people to do more than you ask of them, you should tell them that!"

"I agree, it's not fair," said the owner. "But it's also true that we don't expect people to do more than they're asked to do. It's simply that we recognize that it's possible, and take that into account. On the other hand, we don't, of course, deny rooms to those who do only what was asked of them."

"But anyway," said the woman, "I did do more than I was asked. Let me see that list." The owner handed it over, and she ran her finger down several pages. "Look here," she said. "One act of charity. I took a young poor girl in to live with me, and gave her board and room. I didn't have to do that."

The owner looked over at where her finger pointed. "Oh yes, that. Well, for one thing, you do know that we asked for some acts of charity."

"But you didn't ask for that one. And I have others."

"Yes, we're aware of that. But let's look at that act. You agreed with the girl that she'd share the housework in exchange for the room, wasn't that it?"

"Well of course; that's only fair."

"Exactly. And fairness is justice, isn't it? Our view of charity is that it goes beyond justice."

"But it did!" she said. "Look at what she was getting: she had no place to live, and all she had to do was a little of the housework--not even all of it, just a little. If she'd rented a room, she would have had to pay for it and do all her own cleaning and cooking."

"That's true," said the owner, "from her point of view. But from yours, you were relieved of half of the housework in exchange for the slight inconvenience of having someone else living with you--and it wasn't all that inconvenient, was it? Because the preceding week, you'd put in an advertisement for a companion, which you would have had to pay for. You were better off with here living there than you were before."

"But she got more out of it than I did! A lot more! You men don't understand anything. I may have had a 'companion,' as you put it, but with two living in the same house, there's twice as much cleaning and cooking to be done."

"Well, not quite twice as much. Was there?"

She hesitated. "Well maybe not exactly twice, but almost. But that's beside the point. I would have done it even if she couldn't have done any housework; it was for her sake as much as mine that we made the agreement. She shouldn't get the idea that you can have something for nothing."

"Why not?"

"Why not! You of all people asking me that! Now I'm sure you can't be the owner. Not the one I've been speaking to all these years."

"Yes, you've spoken to me a great deal," he said.

"You needn't get all huffy about it," she retorted. "Why do you keep imputing motives to me? What was wrong with what I did?"

"Nothing at all; it was a good act. I was simply pointing out that in point of fact, it was an act of justice, not charity; you did all we expected you to do in that act."

"But I could have done more. Is that it?"

"You could have, you know."

"Oh, I could have, I suppose! I could have let everyone walk all over me. God knows they tried, but I never complained. But I happen to believe in standing up for my rights now and then. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. Only that it's possible not to."

"Well, I don't understand that. It's degrading to human dignity if you let people treat you like dirt."

"That's true."

"Well, then?"

"Well, it's possible out of a sense of the human dignity of others not to be concerned with one's own dignity."

"I don't see that. Human dignity is human dignity. Why should my dignity take a back seat to anyone else's?"

"There's no reason. But by the same token, why are you so important that your dignity should take precedence over someone else's?"

"I don't see how you can say that I--a creature created by God--should do damage to myself for the sake of something else."

"I'm not saying that you should do harm to yourself for any reason; only that you don't have to stand on your dignity."

"It's the same thing!"

"It's not, you know. How does someone else's advancement lessen you?"

"Because it makes us unequal! I'm not inferior to anyone! Why should I pretend I am?"

"Well, as to that, either your getting precedence over someone else makes you superior to that other person, in which case you're not equal--or it doesn't really make any difference to the reality of either of you, in which case, his advancement doesn't make you unequal."

"This is ridiculous! I'm not here to solve metaphysical riddles; I'm looking for a room--but not this one. You said I could have a different one. I'd like to see that, if you please."

"I'm happy to oblige, Madame," said the owner. "Please follow me." He led her upstairs and down another, spacious corridor, to a room with an ornate oak-paneled door, which he opened for the woman.

"Well, now! This is what I was expecting. Why didn't you show it to me first?"

"Do you like it?" said the owner, obviously pleased. "We showed you the other one first, because you seemed to want the one you paid for."

The woman walked in, laid her purse upon the mahogany end table, and patted the down-filled cushions of the sofa, which was covered in silk brocade. She went to the window, pulling aside the chiffon curtains, to look out at the view of the lake in the foreground with snow-capped mountains in the distance.

After examining everything carefully, her expression indicated that, somewhat to her disappointment, there was nothing for her to find fault with. Finally, she turned back to the owner. "I'll take it," she said.

"There is a condition on it, however," said the owner.

"Oh, there is! I fail to see--well, never mind. We can discuss that after I've moved in. What is the condition?"

"The price for this room is that you receive it as a gift, and not as something that you paid for."

The woman looked at the owner for almost a full minute. Then she looked around the room again, and turned back to the owner. "Well, in the first place, I know that your records are wrong, and this is the room I worked so hard for and had my heart set on."

"It's yours if you want it, Madame."

"--But in the second place," the woman went on as if the owner had not spoken, "I have never accepted a dime of charity in my life, and I'm too old to begin at my age. Now let's stop all this nonsense, and take me to the real owner, and let me straighten up this mess. I don't know why all this has to happen to me. I only try to get what's fair."

"You can have what's fair, Madame, if that's what you want. But it's the other room, I assure you. There's been no mistake; and I really am the owner."

"Well, I won't stand for it! I won't take this room as a gift and say that I didn't deserve it! And the other room is simply out of the question. I'm going to complain to the management!"

"You'd only be complaining to me, Madame. I'm sorry, but there's no one else."

The woman turned out of the room, and suddenly the door of the mansion appeared before her. She opened it, and with her hand still on the knob, said, "You haven't heard the last of this. I'll be back."

"I certainly hope you will be, Madame."