A Wicked Woman

"A Wicked Woman" is a novella by Jack London that delves into themes of morality, desire, and societal constraints. The story follows the complex relationship between a man and a woman who challenge the conventions of their time. Through vivid character portrayals and a gripping narrative, London explores the nature of wickedness and the struggles between personal freedom and societal expectations. The work highlights the intricacies of human emotions, making it a poignant reflection on love, betrayal, and the pursuit of happiness.

• Novel

								
It was because she had broken with Billy that Loretta had come visiting
to Santa Clara. Billy could not understand. His sister had reported that
he had walked the floor and cried all night. Loretta had not slept all
night either, while she had wept most of the night. Daisy knew this,
because it was in her arms that the weeping had been done. And Daisy's
husband, Captain Kitt, knew, too. The tears of Loretta, and the
comforting by Daisy, had lost him some sleep.

Now Captain Kitt did not like to lose sleep. Neither did he want Loretta
to marry Billy--nor anybody else. It was Captain Kitt's belief that
Daisy needed the help of her younger sister in the household. But he
did not say this aloud. Instead, he always insisted that Loretta was too
young to think of marriage. So it was Captain Kitt's idea that Loretta
should be packed off on a visit to Mrs. Hemingway. There wouldn't be any
Billy there.

Before Loretta had been at Santa Clara a week, she was convinced that
Captain Kitt's idea was a good one. In the first place, though Billy
wouldn't believe it, she did not want to marry Billy. And in the second
place, though Captain Kitt wouldn't believe it, she did not want to
leave Daisy. By the time Loretta had been at Santa Clara two weeks, she
was absolutely certain that she did not want to marry Billy. But she was
not so sure about not wanting to leave Daisy. Not that she loved Daisy
less, but that she--had doubts.

The day of Loretta's arrival, a nebulous plan began shaping itself in
Mrs. Hemingway's brain. The second day she remarked to Jack Hemingway,
her husband, that Loretta was so innocent a young thing that were it not
for her sweet guilelessness she would be positively stupid. In proof
of which, Mrs. Hemingway told her husband several things that made him
chuckle. By the third day Mrs. Hemingway's plan had taken recognizable
form. Then it was that she composed a letter. On the envelope she wrote:
"Mr. Edward Bashford, Athenian Club, San Francisco."

"Dear Ned," the letter began. She had once been violently loved by him
for three weeks in her pre-marital days. But she had covenanted herself
to Jack Hemingway, who had prior claims, and her heart as well; and Ned
Bashford had philosophically not broken his heart over it. He merely
added the experience to a large fund of similarly collected data out of
which he manufactured philosophy. Artistically and temperamentally he
was a Greek--a tired Greek. He was fond of quoting from Nietzsche, in
token that he, too, had passed through the long sickness that follows
upon the ardent search for truth; that he too had emerged, too
experienced, too shrewd, too profound, ever again to be afflicted by the
madness of youths in their love of truth. "'To worship appearance,'" he
often quoted; "'to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole
Olympus of appearance!'" This particular excerpt he always concluded
with, "'Those Greeks were superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY!'"

He was a fairly young Greek, jaded and worn. Women were faithless and
unveracious, he held--at such times that he had relapses and descended
to pessimism from his wonted high philosophical calm. He did not believe
in the truth of women; but, faithful to his German master, he did
not strip from them the airy gauzes that veiled their untruth. He was
content to accept them as appearances and to make the best of it. He was
superficial--OUT OF PROFUNDITY.

"Jack says to be sure to say to you, 'good swimming,'" Mrs. Hemingway
wrote in her letter; "and also 'to bring your fishing duds along.'" Mrs.
Hemingway wrote other things in the letter. She told him that at last
she was prepared to exhibit to him an absolutely true, unsullied, and
innocent woman. "A more guileless, immaculate bud of womanhood never
blushed on the planet," was one of the several ways in which she phrased
the inducement. And to her husband she said triumphantly, "If I don't
marry Ned off this time--" leaving unstated the terrible alternative
that she lacked either vocabulary to express or imagination to conceive.

Contrary to all her forebodings, Loretta found that she was not unhappy
at Santa Clara. Truly, Billy wrote to her every day, but his letters
were less distressing than his presence. Also, the ordeal of being away
from Daisy was not so severe as she had expected. For the first time in
her life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant
and mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta
came rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly
retreated into the background.

Loretta began to discover that she was not a pale orb shining by
reflection. Quite unconsciously she became a small centre of things.
When she was at the piano, there was some one to turn the pages for
her and to express preferences for certain songs. When she dropped her
handkerchief, there was some one to pick it up. And there was some one
to accompany her in ramblings and flower gatherings. Also, she learned
to cast flies in still pools and below savage riffles, and how not to
entangle silk lines and gut-leaders with the shrubbery.

Jack Hemingway did not care to teach beginners, and fished much by
himself, or not at all, thus giving Ned Bashford ample time in which
to consider Loretta as an appearance. As such, she was all that his
philosophy demanded. Her blue eyes had the direct gaze of a boy, and
out of his profundity he delighted in them and forbore to shudder at the
duplicity his philosophy bade him to believe lurked in their depths. She
had the grace of a slender flower, the fragility of colour and line of
fine china, in all of which he pleasured greatly, without thought of the
Life Force palpitating beneath and in spite of Bernard Shaw--in whom he
believed.

Loretta burgeoned. She swiftly developed personality. She discovered
a will of her own and wishes of her own that were not everlastingly
entwined with the will and the wishes of Daisy. She was petted by Jack
Hemingway, spoiled by Alice Hemingway, and devotedly attended by Ned
Bashford. They encouraged her whims and laughed at her follies, while
she developed the pretty little tyrannies that are latent in all pretty
and delicate women. Her environment acted as a soporific upon her
ancient desire always to live with Daisy. This desire no longer prodded
her as in the days of her companionship with Billy. The more she saw of
Billy, the more certain she had been that she could not live away
from Daisy. The more she saw of Ned Bashford, the more she forgot her
pressing need of Daisy.

Ned Bashford likewise did some forgetting. He confused superficiality
with profundity, and entangled appearance with reality until he
accounted them one. Loretta was different from other women. There was no
masquerade about her. She was real. He said as much to Mrs. Hemingway,
and more, who agreed with him and at the same time caught her husband's

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