Knives were apt to be drawn, and blood spilt amongst these good brothers during this short voyage, and even the sisters did not regard one another with that benevolence and concord that Socialists ought to feel towards each other. Human nature is such a vile weed to root out of human hearts.
Dr Fernandez tried to keep peace, as did Captain Anatole, but with indifferent success. The ex-Countess de Bergamont, or the Princess Sebastopol, or Baroness von Hilda, having legitimate husbands on board, caused not a little excitement with their free ideas of women's rights.
They were right, of course, according to the Anarchical code, to do as they liked, and their husbands to be regarded as almost traitors to the commonweal to grumble at or attempt to curb or control their inclinations, yet husbands are so unreasonable, as well as wives, sometimes, even in the most perfectly organised communities, that the chosen leaders had a hard time of it, while the unseen watchers almost chuckled when they saw how affairs were progressing.
Dr Fernandez was not a ladies' man in the amorous sense, and through the whole course of their matrimonial misery, his wife had never the slightest cause for vulgar jealousy regarding him. He was a calculating devil, who regarded the other sex with contempt. He had taken his wife because he thought he might have use for her, and if, like Richard III., he did dissemble to suit his purposes, and made love with grace and fervour, she had quickly discovered how much she was to him. He was not capable of vulgar jealousy. He was a true Anarchist, body and soul; a man without a remorse or tremor of fear, who held his own life nearly as cheaply as he did those of others.
