his
name and affection upon them, and leave them his property. One can
scarcely conceive of a more outrageous wrong than this; and it is in
order to guard against such a possibility that society from remote ages
has watched over the chastity of women far more jealously than over that
of men. It is as a result of this vigilance of centuries that women
have, among civilized nations, a finer sense of modesty than men, and a
higher standard of personal purity. Men are, as yet, as Mr. Howells
remarks, "imperfectly monogamous;" and Bjoernson is, no doubt, in the
main right in the tremendous indictment he frames against them in the
present drama.

It may be expedient to give a brief outline of the action. Svava Riis,
the daughter of prosperous and refined parents, becomes engaged to Alf
Christensen, the son of a great commercial magnate.

Her father and mother are overjoyed at the happy event; she is herself
no less delighted. Her _fiance_ has an excellent reputation, shares her
interest in social questions, and supports her in her efforts to found
kindergartens and to ameliorate the lot of the poor. Each glories in
the exclusive possession of the other's love, and with the retrospective
jealousy of lovers, fancies that he has had no predecessors in the
affection of the beloved. Alf can scarcely endure to have any one touch
Svava, and is almost ill when any one dances with her.

"When I see you among all the others," he exclaims, "and catch, for
instance, a glimpse of your arm, then I think: That arm has been wound
about my neck, and about no one else's in the whole world. She is mine!
She belongs to me, and to no one, no one else!"

Svava finds this feeling perfectly natural, and reciprocates it. She
ardently believes that he brings her as fresh a heart as she brings him;
that his past is as free from contaminating experience as is her own.
When, therefore, she obtains proof to the contrary, in an indignant
revulsion of feeling, she hurls her glove in his face and breaks the
engagement. This act is, I fancy, intended to be half symbolic. The
young girl expresses not only her personal sense of outrage; but she
flings a challenge in the face of the whole community, which by its
indulgence made his transgression easy. She discovers that what in her
would have been a crime is in him a lapse, readily forgiven. Her whole
soul revolts against this inequality of conditions; and in terminating
their relation, which has lost all i