“Does he become violent? Are we going to have a drunken scene?”
“Oh no; we need apprehend nothing of that kind. I never heard of his committing any public folly. The devil that enters into him is not a rioting, boisterous fiend, but quiet, malignant, suspicious and cruel.”
“Suspicious? Of what?”
“Of everybody and everything. His brother officers are in league against him; his wife is regarded with jealousy; your frankest speech covers in his view some hidden and sinister meaning. You must be careful of your attentions to Mrs. Abercrombie to-night, for he will construe them adversely, and pour out his wrath on her defenceless head when they are alone.”
“This is frightful,” was answered. “I never heard of such a case.”
“Never heard of a drunken man assaulting his wife when alone with her, beating, maiming or murdering her?”
“Oh yes, among the lowest and vilest. But we are speaking now of people in good society—people of culture and refinement.”
“Culture and social refinements have no influence over a man when the fever of intoxication is upon him. He is for the time an insane man, and subject to the influx and control of malignant influences. Hell rules him instead of heaven.”
“It is awful to think of. It makes me shudder.”
“We know little of what goes on at home after an entertainment like this,” said the other. “It all looks so glad and brilliant. Smiles, laughter, gayety, enjoyment, meet you at every turn. Each one is at his or her best. It is a festival of delight. But you cannot at this day give wine and brandy without stint to one or two or three hundred men and women of all ages, habits, temperaments and hereditary moral and physical conditions without the production of many evil consequences. It matters little what the social condition may be; the hurt of drink is the same. The sphere of respectability may and does guard many. Culture and pride of position hold others free from undue sensual indulgence. But with the larger number the enticements of appetite are as strong and enslaving in one grade of society as in another, and the disturbance of normal conditions as great. And so you see that the wife of an intoxicated army officer or lawyer or banker may be in as much danger from his drunken and insane fury, when alone with him and unprotected, as the wife of a street-sweeper or hod-carrier.”
“I have never thought of it in that way.”
“No, perhaps not. Cases of wife-beating and personal injuries, of savage and frightful assaults, of terrors and sufferings endured among the refined and educated, rarely if ever come to public notice. Family pride, personal delicacy and many other considerations seal the lips in silence. But there are few social circles in which it is not known that some of its members are sad sufferers because of a husband’s or a father’s intemperance, and there are many, many families, alas! which have always in their homes the shadow of a sorrow that embitters everything. They hide it as best they can, and few know or dream of what they endure.”