AN OPEN LETTER TO FRAU I. H.

There are ideas which affect the mind, as the touch of a spider feels on the finger. They awaken horror, loathing, lasting discomfort. I fear that the conception “stepmother” is one of them. The word is uttered in our presence, and awakes in our souls a series of images, some painful, some repulsive; on the one hand is the poor motherless child in the care of strangers, meanly clad, ill-fed, scolded, beaten, burdened with impossible tasks, who secretly steals out on Winter nights to its mother’s grave, and there, with heart-rending sobs, calls to the snow-clad mound the reproachful question why she did not take her child with her, why she had left it alone in the world; on the other hand is the wicked woman, toothless, blear-eyed, with hooked chin and nose, which almost meet, fingers as bony as a skeleton’s, who is happy only when she has devised some new torture, some new humiliation for her foster-child. How have these images entered our sphere of thought? Perhaps from fairy tales, perhaps from poems and stories, I don’t know myself. Not from experience, that is certain. Most of us have probably no knowledge of stepmothers, and those with whom we are acquainted do not bear the remotest resemblance to the idea which dwells in our minds. Yet the contradiction between preconceived opinions and the reality does not impress us, and we do not think of correcting the former by the latter.

The letter which you, madame, addressed to me a few days ago, for a definite purpose and in which, with noble excitement, you demanded justice for the stepmother, first led me to reflect, and I have now become aware of my prejudices, my cruel injustice toward one of the most meritorious classes of the human race. You are right, the stepmother is a martyr. She is a sufferer, but no one pities her, a martyr who never receives the reward of canonization, a tragic heroine who never finds her poet. She has married a widower and enters her new home, where she meets a beautiful, sorrowful orphaned child. Her heart is overflowing with the noblest feelings. She will be a loving mother to the poor orphan, will kiss away the shadow of premature grief from the young brow! Fate was less kind to her than to her companions, who, during the first months after marriage, saw only the bright side of wedded life; pleasant wedding journeys, inexhaustible proofs of tenderness, endless love tokens. She is obliged to learn, with the pleasant side of married life, its hardest duties, for which nature has given to others of her sex long months of preparation; she has become at the same time wife and mother. But what of that? With the enthusiasm of a young soul, in whom love for the child and the pleasure of acting a mother’s part are a heritage of the female sex, she assumes her sublime task; she surrounds the child with solicitude and tenderness; she kisses it awake in the morning and sings it to sleep at night; she talks to it, plays with it, never loses sight of it. Under this warmth of affection the child instantly begins to flourish, as the earth responds to the heat of the sun. It has the coquettish beauty of a wax-doll, its cheeks grow rosy, its eyes bright, its little arms round and plump, but no love beams in the eyes, the arms do not learn to clasp the neck of the stepmother, and the little mouth does not smile.

The stepmother is puzzled, and begins to reflect. Before her mind rises the scene when her husband first brought her to their future home and introduced her to the child with the words: “Baby, here is your new mamma; be good and obedient, and she will love you very, very dearly. There, now, give mamma a pretty kiss!” She had bent over the child, and while pressing it warmly to her heart a tear fell on its little fair head. The child had stood motionless, with its eyes fixed on its toes; it had submitted to everything, but without a word of affection or even a kiss in response. This had chilled the young mother like an icy breath; the husband noticed or felt it, and said: “You know how children are; the poor thing is shy, she is so unaccustomed to see strange faces. But she will soon love you as you deserve.” This had satisfied her, and she believed it. But now a year, two years had passed; the child must have become accustomed to the “strange face,” it must have felt long ago that the “new mamma” loved it very, very dearly! Yet it is as cold, as distant, as reserved, as on the first day. The stepmother looks tenderly at it, it lowers its eyes; she kisses it, it obediently offers its lips, but they are motionless; she speaks pleasantly to it, it maintains a sullen silence. The stepmother goes out with the child, everybody turns, admires its beauty, envies the woman who has such a treasure. Alas, this angel has a joyous glance for all except the stepmother, a gay, childlike laugh for every one save her. The beautiful child is only lively in the street, out of the house; at home it is sulky. Every act of kindness from a stranger is eagerly and enthusiastically acknowledged, but the loving words of the foster-mother find no echo; they die away with no more effect than if they had been flung into the sea.

The stepmother, with deep sorrow, asks herself the cause of all this, and can find no answer. Poor woman! Busily, untiringly you weave your web of love around the heart of the child confided to you, and do not know that behind your back an evil Penelope sits, raveling at night what you have done during the day! First, there are the first wife’s relatives; from devotion to the dead they are wicked to the living; whenever the child visits them it hears itself pitied; it is told of its mamma, not the new one, for she is not its mother, but the old one, how differently she would have loved it, how differently she would have treated it; it is questioned about the stranger’s acts, and whether she treats it kindly. Then there are servants, governesses, foolish strangers, who, partly to win the child’s affection, partly from wretched sentimentality, which considers it noble and kindhearted to roll up the eyes and express pity where there is no cause for compassion—sing the same song to the little one from morning till night. It never hears itself called anything but “poor child! poor orphan!” It learns that it tells an untruth whenever it calls its stepmother “mamma”; it is taught to play the spy, to suspect, to dissimulate; it is robbed of the frankness and guilelessness of childhood and accustomed to seek beneath its stepmother’s words different thoughts, beneath her acts hostile motives. Poor child, in whose mind distrust is roused ere the judgment is formed! The mother denies it an apple because it has already eaten too many, and it feels sure that it is her malice which prompts her to refuse it the most innocent pleasure; the mother will not permit it to visit a friend because it has taken cold, and the weather is stormy, and it no longer doubts the enmity of this woman, of whom everybody tells it so much evil. And now come Christmas gifts of fairy tales, which describe the wicked stepmother who thrice poisoned Snow-White, and the other one who killed her stepson and served him to the father on the dinner table, and if the child has previously doubted, it is now confident, for the book, printed, bound, and filled with pictures, cannot deceive! So it learns to hate at an age when it is our fairest privilege to love, and to doubt at a time whose happiness is implicit faith.

Can this criminal poisoning of the child’s soul remain without influence upon the stepmother? I deny it. What can you expect? Even the noblest woman is mortal, and she has a still keener sensitiveness to the return, or the failure to return her feelings than the rest of us. Categorical necessity was not created for women, it is hard enough for men. To fill a bottomless cask was rightfully considered by the subtle Greek the most terrible punishment which could be devised for women. In the bitter conflict with constant ingratitude, even the strongest sense of duty, the most self-sacrificing nobility, must finally succumb. We can give love only when, in some degree, we receive love in return. One-sidedness here leads finally to impoverishment, and at last the stepmother really feels for the child indifference, possibly aversion, or even hate.

When we have once reached this point what a tragic picture unrolls before our eyes! When the stepmother married she made herself the priestess, who was to erect a new statue in a deserted temple, kindle a fresh flame amid the dead embers of a cold altar; she set herself the noble task of becoming a mother to the orphan, creating a pleasant home for a lonely man, bringing happiness and joy into a sorrowful family circle. And now, after years of humble, but heroic labor and exertion, amid which the bloom of her life has withered, here is the result; a cold-hearted child, whose soul is filled with hate and who is unspeakably poor and pitiable because she lacks the treasure of sunny memories of childhood, on which we happier mortals can draw during a long life; a husband, whose home is distasteful because he cannot endure the silent reproach in the sad eyes of his child, and she herself, the wife, tortured by the most painful sting, bitter grief for a marred life, an object of aversion to her husband, her foster-child, the whole careless world! Who is to blame for such mournful results? The mother? The child? The father? Neither of the three. It is the fault of the senselessness and malice of prejudiced people.

This is the way in which the stepmother’s life presented itself to me, and I wish that the whole world could see it with my eyes. Only how is the evil, when recognized, to be remedied? You, madame, would fain see the books of fairy tales, with their Snow-Whites and wicked stepmothers abolished, or rather you would like to have these stories omitted from the volume. That would be desirable and useful, but I fear it is impracticable. Man is weak and irrational, and I confess that, notwithstanding its baneful tendencies, which I admit, I would not for the world see Snow-White torn from my own childish memories. I am afraid that it will not do to throw away, for the sake of stepchildren, some of the most precious pearls in the treasury of fairy tales. The wisdom and tact of the father, and the absolute sincerity of the stepmother can do more for the child.

One thing is especially necessary: the woman who resolves to undertake the thankless office of a stepmother must fully realize the magnitude of the task and the measure of strength which she can bring to the fulfillment of her arduous duty. She is to conquer a child’s heart, which is defended by a strong garrison of hostile insinuations, and by constant watchfulness guard it against continual attacks; she must daily wage a fierce warfare against the stupid, the thoughtless and the wicked people, in which she will continually receive aching wounds; she must struggle and bleed for years, alone and unaided, but at last victory will be hers, for in the battle against evil and injustice love always triumphs because it is the strongest of the three. If the future wife feels that her powers will not be equal to this conflict, then let her remain away from the house where children await a foster-mother; she would render it a hell for them and for herself. But if the goal seems to her attainable and the road not too rough, let her confidently take up the cross, for her reward will be rich and enviable. She will work miracles such as can be wrought by love alone. The children will gradually see the living image of the stepmother merge into the fading one of the dead mother, and will no longer be able to separate the one from the other. They will always hold the stepmother in grateful remembrance as the angel whom God sent to the languishing Ishmael, when poor Hagar could no longer obtain water for her child. Perhaps, in later years, when the second mother has followed the first, foolish people will speak in the customary way of stepmothers, in the presence of the children, whose heads already have the snow of years. Then they will—and, judging from your letter, madame, I think you, too, would do the same—then they will look upward with tearful eyes to the portrait of the dead stepmother, whispering: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do!”