Miss Q. Wants To Marry

An Enlightened Daughter and Her Mother Discuss Some Matrimonial Problems

FERENC MOLNAR

SCENE: A first-class compartment in Simplon-Orient Express train en route to Venice. Characters: A mother and her daughter.

DAUGHTER: Mother, in a few minutes we'll arrive in Venice. It's about time to go through our war-plan once more. Now then, so far you know only that we are going to the Excelsior Hotel at the Lido . . .

MOTHER: . . . Because you want to get married.

DAUGHTER: Quite correct. It's there I want to find the man to whom I intend to attach my life and fate.

MOTHER: That's clear. As clear as day. It's a short and wise plan. In Venice and on the Lido one can find the man who fulfills all the desired requirements. Why, then, do we need a plan worked out in all its details in advance? All one needs is a little luck?

DAUGHTER: Just what do you call "a little luck"?

MOTHER: A young, healthy, wealthy, honest and morally responsible man who falls in love with you and marries you.

DAUGHTER: On this point our ideas are in direct opposition.

MOTHER: Why?

DAUGHTER: Because you are and I am 20. You belong to a past generation; I, to a new one. We two will never understand each other.

MOTHER: Perhaps—when small matters are in question. As far as dancing, dresses, flirtations, travels, and things like these are concerned, I know that my opinions differ from yours. But when marriage is at stake, I doubt whether you want something else than what I've just outlined to you: a husband who is young, healthy, wealthy, honest, and is morally responsible.

DAUGHTER: I don't agree with you, mother. MOTHER: My child, let's consider the requirements one by one. You'11 admit that he should be young.

DAUCIITER: NO. He should be old. I am twenty. And today the wisest difference between the ages of husbands and wives is forty years. Therefore, he should be at least sixty. If he is older, all the better.

MOTHER: Shocking!

DAUGHTER: Not at all. Only wise. The ideal husband should be passive in every respect. He should not stir up the peace of my nerves by making me fall in love with him or by making me suffer the pains of jealousy. He should not demand children. All of his paternal instincts should be reserved for me, as if I were his child. And, above all, his will should be brilliant and positively uncontestable.

MOTHER: My second stipulation was: he should be wealthy.

DAUGHTER: On this point, there is but a very slight difference between our opinions. You say that he be rich. I say that he be richer. Much richer. Even richer than that. As a matter of fact, I set no limits as to his wealth.

MOTH ER : Too great a fortune brings worries, my child.

DAUGHTER: For him. Not for me.

MOTHER: Thirdly: health.

DAUGHTER: Wrong again. Once he is old, he shouldn't be healthy, either. There's nothing more uncomfortable in the world than an old man who, after drawing up his last will and testament, lives for thirty more years, playing golf and smoking strong, black cigars. I should die of shame if my husband were to be

feted by his fellow club-members as a centenarian. On the other hand, I am not bloodthirsty: all I wish is that he be just as sick as most old gentlemen are. I mean those old gentlemen whose organs quit service one after another, and not suddenly, but, like faithful old servants, only after serving notice first.

MOTHER: Horrifying!

DAUGHTER: Not at all. Merely, wise.

MOTHER: Fourth condition: honesty.

DAUGHTER: That is not absolutely necessary. If I were to adhere to this stipulation, my choice among rich men would be strictly limited. And I want to make my selection from among all the rich men. If I were looking for a cashier, mother dear, or for a man to whom I could safely entrust the management of my business, I should be rather particular about his honesty. But I'm looking for a husband, dearest.

MOTHER: I'll faint in a second!

DAUGHTER: You'll not, mother. You've been promising that for many long years and have never yet done it.

MOTHER: After all this, I hardly dare mention the last condition. I mean that he must possess a sense of moral responsibility.

DAUGHTER: Your anxiety is perfectly justified, mother dear. In view of the fact that the man under discussion will be of the species commonly known as "first husbands", the aim is to get rid of him quickly and easily and yet so that the money should stay with me. If we find a man without the slightest trace of moral responsibility, we are acquitted from the unpleasant and not too noble worry of counting on his decease. An immoral man may provide me with a thousand grounds for a perfectly divine divorce. If I have a bit of luck, that is to say: if the man is very immoral, I've good chances for a highly scandalous divorce case. And you know very well, dearest, that it is these divorce cases which show up the woman most advantageously and most sympathetically, and which earn the most money for her. From such cases women generally emerge surrounded by the sympathy and love of the whole world, and, to boot, in the possession of a neat little fortune. Then, mother darling, as a young, unhappy, sympathetic, and rich divorced woman, I can have the kind of husband I really want. And then—but only then —I shall have brains enough to choose a young, healthy, wealthy, honest, and morally responsible man from among the countless thousands who will undoubtedly report.

MOTHER: My dearest child, I have but one more humble question to ask you. DAUGHTER: Yes, dearest?

MOTHER: Why couldn't you start off immediately with the type I suggested?

DAUGHTER: Because that would be a most risky enterprise, dearest. If he is young, I may fall hopelessly in love with him, and if he were to maltreat me, I might not have enough strength to divorce him. A rich young man .may lose his fortune,—septuagenarians rarely go bankrupt. A healthy young man may contract a deadly disease, but an old man is just naturally sick. A morally responsible young man may easily be led to dissipation by the million temptations of the world, but where an aged roue is concerned such a thing cannot happen. If I marry a young man, I shall, in all probability, have to spend decades with him, during which time I may fall in love with some one else—and he, too, may fall in love with another woman. The tragedies resulting from these possibilities are excluded from the beginning when my method is applied. MOTHER: And the children?

DAUGHTER: With an old man for a husband the danger of children is diminished.

MOTHER: In my time they used to say: the blessing of children.

DAUGHTER: Your horrified expression betrays that you are thinking of danger instead of blessing in my case.

MOTHER: I'm in despair!

DAUGHTER: By providing through my first husband a sound financial background for the welfare of my children from my second husband, I do what every good mother ought to do. You see, mother dear, had you been thinking the same way I do, we should not be poor now and we should not need to start on our hunt of a husband for me with such a complicated campaign. If you think about it, darling, you'll realise that my method is a thousand times better than all the old ones, so highly respected by you, combined. I'll make a better match than you have made. And I shall have a more normally thinking, more sensible daughter than you have. For if my daughter, at twenty, will dare speak to me the way I do with you now, I'll put her into a sanitarium immediately whence she'll never be permitted to come out.

(Continued on page 100)

(Continued from page 58)

(The Conductor enters.)

THE CONDUCTOR: Ladies, we arrive in Venice in ten minutes.

(The Mother dries her tears.)

DAUGHTER: Don't cry, dearest, no wrong can happen to me. Only those girls are in the wrong whose ideal of a suitable husband is the man who flies alone over the Ocean, from America to Europe, for the first time. My method completely eliminates any danger you can possibly think of.