Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy - 1828 - 1910
Portrait by Ilia Repin
Portrait by Ilia Repin
CHAPTER I
Travellers left and entered our car at every stopping of the train. Three
persons, however, remained, bound, like myself, for the farthest station:
a lady neither young nor pretty, smoking cigarettes, with a thin face, a
cap on her head, and wearing a semi-masculine outer garment; then her
companion, a very loquacious gentleman of about forty years, with baggage
entirely new and arranged in an orderly manner; then a gentleman who held
himself entirely aloof, short in stature, very nervous, of uncertain age,
with bright eyes, not pronounced in color, but extremely attractive, eyes
that darted with rapidity from one object to another.
This gentleman, during almost all the journey thus far, had entered into
conversation with no fellow-traveller, as if he carefully avoided all
acquaintance. When spoken to, he answered curtly and decisively, and began
to look out of the car window obstinately.
Yet it seemed to me that the solitude weighed upon him. He seemed to
perceive that I understood this, and when our eyes met, as happened
frequently, since we were sitting almost opposite each other, he turned
away his head, and avoided conversation with me as much as with the
others. At nightfall, during a stop at a large station, the gentleman with
the fine baggage—a lawyer, as I have since learned—got out
with his companion to drink some tea at the restaurant. During their
absence several new travellers entered the car, among whom was a tall old
man, shaven and wrinkled, evidently a merchant, wearing a large
heavily-lined cloak and a big cap. This merchant sat down opposite the
empty seats of the lawyer and his companion, and straightway entered into
conversation with a young man who seemed like an employee in some
commercial house, and who had likewise just boarded the train. At first
the clerk had remarked that the seat opposite was occupied, and the old
man had answered that he should get out at the first station. Thus their
conversation started.
I was sitting not far from these two travellers, and, as the train was not
in motion, I could catch bits of their conversation when others were not
talking.
They talked first of the prices of goods and the condition of business;
they referred to a person whom they both knew; then they plunged into the
fair at Nijni Novgorod. The clerk boasted of knowing people who were
leading a gay life there, but the old man did not allow him to continue,
and, interrupting him, began to describe the festivities of the previous
year at Kounavino, in which he had taken part. He was evidently proud of
these recollections, and, probably thinking that this would detract
nothing from the gravity which his face and manners expressed, he related
with pride how, when drunk, he had fired, at Kounavino, such a broadside
that he could describe it only in the other's ear.
The clerk began to laugh noisily. The old man laughed too, showing two
long yellow teeth. Their conversation not interesting me, I left the car
to stretch my legs. At the door I met the lawyer and his lady.
"You have no more time," the lawyer said to me. "The second bell is about
to ring."
Indeed I had scarcely reached the rear of the train when the bell sounded.
As I entered the car again, the lawyer was talking with his companion in
an animated fashion. The merchant, sitting opposite them, was taciturn.
"And then she squarely declared to her husband," said the lawyer with a
smile, as I passed by them, "that she neither could nor would live with
him, because" . . .
And he continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my
attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new
traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer's voice.
The conversation had passed from a special case to general considerations.
"And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between the
two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that seldom
happened. Is it not so?" asked the lawyer of the two merchants, evidently
trying to drag them into the conversation.
Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took off
his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer. When he
had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said:
"Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the
present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become too
learned."
The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever increasing
its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could no longer hear
distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was saying, I drew
nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was evidently interested also,
and, without changing his seat, he lent an ear.
"But what harm is there in education?" asked the lady, with a smile that
was scarcely perceptible. "Would it be better to marry as in the old days,
when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before
marriage?" she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not
the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words she believed he
was going to speak. "Women did not know whether they would love or would
be loved, and they were married to the first comer, and suffered all their
lives. Then you think it was better so?" she continued, evidently
addressing the lawyer and myself, and not at all the old man.
"People have become too learned," repeated the last, looking at the lady
with contempt, and leaving her question unanswered.
"I should be curious to know how you explain the correlation between
education and conjugal differences," said the lawyer, with a slight smile.
The merchant wanted to make some reply, but the lady interrupted him.
"No, those days are past."
The lawyer cut short her words:
"Let him express his thought."
"Because there is no more fear," replied the old man.
"But how will you marry people who do not love each other ? Only animals
can be coupled at the will of a proprietor. But people have inclinations,
attachments," the lady hastened to say, casting a glance at the lawyer, at
me, and even at the clerk, who, standing up and leaning his elbow on the
back of a seat, was listening to the conversation with a smile.
"You are wrong to say that, madam," said the old man. "The animals are
beasts, but man has received the law."
"But, nevertheless, how is one to live with a man when there is no love?"
said the lady, evidently excited by the general sympathy and attention.
"Formerly no such distinctions were made," said the old man, gravely.
"Only now have they become a part of our habits. As soon as the least
thing happens, the wife says: 'I release you. I am going to leave your
house.' Even among the moujiks this fashion has become acclimated.
'There,' she says, 'here are your shirts and drawers. I am going off with
Vanka. His hair is curlier than yours.' Just go talk with them. And yet
the first rule for the wife should be fear."
The clerk looked at the lawyer, the lady, and myself, evidently repressing
a smile, and all ready to deride or approve the merchant's words,
according to the attitude of the others.
"What fear ?" said the lady.
"This fear,—the wife must fear her husband; that is what fear."
"Oh, that, my little father, that is ended."
"No, madam, that cannot end. As she, Eve, the woman, was taken from man's
ribs, so she will remain unto the end of the world," said the old man,
shaking his head so triumphantly and so severely that the clerk, deciding
that the victory was on his side, burst into a loud laugh.
"Yes, you men think so," replied the lady, without surrendering, and
turning toward us. "You have given yourself liberty. As for woman, you
wish to keep her in the seraglio. To you, everything is permissible. Is it
not so ?"
"Oh, man, that's another affair."
"Then, according to you, to man everything is permissible ?"
"No one gives him this permission; only, if the man behaves badly outside,
the family is not increased thereby; but the woman, the wife, is a fragile
vessel," continued the merchant, severely.
His tone of authority evidently subjugated his hearers. Even the lady felt
crushed, but she did not surrender.
"Yes, but you will admit, I think, that woman is a human being, and has
feelings like her husband. What should she do if she does not love her
husband ?"
"If she does not love him!" repeated the old man, stormily, and knitting
his brows; "why, she will be made to love him."
This unexpected argument pleased the clerk, and he uttered a murmur of
approbation.
"Oh, no, she will not be forced," said the lady. "Where there is no love,
one cannot be obliged to love in spite of herself."
"And if the wife deceives her husband, what is to be done ?" said the
lawyer.
"That should not happen," said the old man. "He must have his eyes about
him."
"And if it does happen, all the same ? You will admit that it does happen ?"
"It happens among the upper classes, not among us," answered the old man.
"And if any husband is found who is such a fool as not to rule his wife,
he will not have robbed her. But no scandal, nevertheless. Love or not,
but do not disturb the household. Every husband can govern his wife. He
has the necessary power. It is only the imbecile who does not succeed in
doing so."
Everybody was silent. The clerk moved, advanced, and, not wishing to lag
behind the others in the conversation, began with his eternal smile:
"Yes, in the house of our employer, a scandal has arisen, and it is very
difficult to view the matter clearly. The wife loved to amuse herself, and
began to go astray. He is a capable and serious man. First, it was with
the book-keeper. The husband tried to bring her back to reason through
kindness. She did not change her conduct. She plunged into all sorts of
beastliness. She began to steal his money. He beat her, but she grew worse
and worse. To an unbaptized, to a pagan, to a Jew (saving your
permission), she went in succession for her caresses. What could the
employer do? He has dropped her entirely, and now he lives as a bachelor.
As for her, she is dragging in the depths."
"He is an imbecile," said the old man. "If from the first he had not
allowed her to go in her own fashion, and had kept a firm hand upon her,
she would be living honestly, no danger. Liberty must be taken away from
the beginning. Do not trust yourself to your horse upon the highway. Do
not trust yourself to your wife at home."
At that moment the conductor passed, asking for the tickets for the next
station. The old man gave up his.
"Yes, the feminine sex must be dominated in season, else all will perish."
"And you yourselves, at Kounavino, did you not lead a gay life with the
pretty girls?" asked the lawyer with a smile.
"Oh, that's another matter," said the merchant, severely. "Good-by," he
added, rising. He wrapped himself in his cloak, lifted his cap, and,
taking his bag, left the car.
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had the old man gone when a general conversation began.
"There's a little Old Testament father for you," said the clerk.
"He is a Domostroy,"* said the lady. "What savage ideas about a woman and
marriage !"
(*The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the
Terrible.)
"Yes, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "we are still a long way from the
European ideas upon marriage. First, the rights of woman, then free
marriage, then divorce, as a question not yet solved." . . .
"The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not understand,"
rejoined the lady, "is that only love consecrates marriage, and that the
real marriage is that which is consecrated by love."
The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of one accustomed to store in
his memory all intelligent conversation that he hears, in order to make
use of it afterwards.
"But what is this love that consecrates marriage ?" said, suddenly, the
voice of the nervous and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us, had
approached.
He was standing with his hand on the seat, and evidently agitated. His
face was red, a vein in his forehead was swollen, and the muscles of his
cheeks quivered.
"What is this love that consecrates marriage ?" he repeated.
"What love ?" said the lady. "The ordinary love of husband and wife."
"And how, then, can ordinary love consecrate marriage ?" continued the
nervous gentleman, still excited, and with a displeased air. He seemed to
wish to say something disagreeable to the lady. She felt it, and began to
grow agitated.
"How ? Why, very simply," said she.
The nervous gentleman seized the word as it left her lips.
"No, not simply."
"Madam says," interceded the lawyer indicating his companion, "that
marriage should be first the result of an attachment, of a love, if you
will, and that, when love exists, and in that case only, marriage
represents something sacred. But every marriage which is not based on a
natural attachment, on love, has in it nothing that is morally obligatory.
Is not that the idea that you intended to convey ?" he asked the lady.
The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this
translation of her thoughts.
"Then," resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.
But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself,
without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:
"Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone
consecrates marriage ?"
"Everybody knows what love is," said the lady.
"But I don't know, and I should like to know how you define it."
"How? It is very simple," said the lady.
And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:
"Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the
exclusion of all others. . . ."
"A preference for how long ? . . . For a month, two days, or half an hour ?"
said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the same thing."
"Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same thing. Of the preference for one
man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. But I ask: a preference
for how long ?"
"For how long ? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes."
"But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this preference
for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases several years,
oftener several months, or even weeks, days, hours. . . ."
"Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me," said all three of us at the same time.
The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.
"Yes, I know," he said, shouting louder than all of us; "you are talking
of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man feels
what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very little
toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb, and it is a true
one, 'Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood."'
"Ah, but what you say is terrible ! There certainly exists among human
beings this feeling which is called love, and which lasts, not for months
and years, but for life."
"No, that does not exist. Even if it should be admitted that Menelaus had
preferred Helen all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris; and so it
has been, is, and will be eternally. And it cannot be otherwise, just as
it cannot happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas marked with a
special sign should fall side by side. Further, this is not only an
improbability, but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will come to
Helen or to Menelaus. The whole difference is that to one it comes sooner,
to the other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is written that
'they loved each other all their lives.' And none but children can believe
it. To talk of loving a man or woman for life is like saying that a candle
can burn forever."
"But you are talking of physical love. Do you not admit a love based upon
a conformity of ideals, on a spiritual affinity ?"
"Why not ? But in that case it is not necessary to procreate together
(excuse my brutality). The point is that this conformity of ideals is not
met among old people, but among young and pretty persons," said he, and he
began to laugh disagreeably.
"Yes, I affirm that love, real love, does not consecrate marriage, as we
are in the habit of believing, but that, on the contrary, it ruins it."
"Permit me," said the lawyer. "The facts contradict your words. We see
that marriage exists, that all humanity, at least the larger portion, lives
conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end a long life
together."
The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.
"And what then ? You say that marriage is based upon love, and when I give
voice to a doubt as to the existence of any other love than sensual love,
you prove to me the existence of love by marriage. But in our day marriage
is only a violence and falsehood."
"No, pardon me," said the lawyer. "I say only that marriages have existed
and do exist."
"But how and why do they exist ? They have existed, and they do exist, for
people who have seen, and do see, in marriage something sacramental, a
sacrament that is binding before God. For such people marriages exist, but
to us they are only hypocrisy and violence. We feel it, and, to clear
ourselves, we preach free love; but, really, to preach free love is only a
call backward to the promiscuity of the sexes (excuse me, he said to the
lady), the haphazard sin of certain raskolniks. The old foundation is
shattered; we must build a new one, but we must not preach debauchery."
He grew so warm that all became silent, looking at him in astonishment.
"And yet the transition state is terrible. People feel that haphazard sin
is inadmissible. It is necessary in some way or other to regulate the
sexual relations; but there exists no other foundation than the old one,
in which nobody longer believes? People marry in the old fashion, without
believing in what they do, and the result is falsehood, violence. When it
is falsehood alone, it is easily endured. The husband and wife simply
deceive the world by professing to live monogamically. If they really are
polygamous and polyandrous, it is bad, but acceptable. But when, as often
happens, the husband and the wife have taken upon themselves the
obligation to live together all their lives (they themselves do not know
why), and from the second month have already a desire to separate, but
continue to live together just the same, then comes that infernal
existence in which they resort to drink, in which they fire revolvers, in
which they assassinate each other, in which they poison each other."
All were silent, but we felt ill at ease.
"Yes, these critical episodes happen in marital life. For instance, there
is the Posdnicheff affair," said the lawyer, wishing to stop the
conversation on this embarrassing and too exciting ground. "Have you read
how he killed his wife through jealousy ?"
The lady said that she had not read it. The nervous gentleman said
nothing, and changed color.
"I see that you have divined who I am," said he, suddenly, after a pause.
"No, I have not had that pleasure."
"It is no great pleasure. I am Posdnicheff."
New silence. He blushed, then turned pale again.
"What matters it, however ?" said he. "Excuse me, I do not wish to
embarrass you."
And he resumed his old seat.
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
I resumed mine, also. The lawyer and the lady whispered together. I was
sitting beside Posdnicheff, and I maintained silence. I desired to talk to
him, but I did not know how to begin, and thus an hour passed until we
reached the next station.
There the lawyer and the lady went out, as well as the clerk. We were left
alone, Posdnicheff and I.
"They say it, and they lie, or they do not understand," said Posdnicheff.
"Of what are you talking ?"
"Why, still the same thing."
He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and pressed his hands against his
temples.
"Love, marriage, family, all lies, lies, lies."
He rose, lowered the lamp-shade, lay down with his elbows on the cushion,
and closed his eyes. He remained thus for a minute.
"Is it disagreeable to you to remain with me, now that you know who I am ?"
"Oh, no."
"You have no desire to sleep ?"
"Not at all."
"Then do you want me to tell you the story of my life ?"
Just then the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured look,
and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the rest of the
story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they entered did
not stop him.
His face, while he was talking, changed several times so completely that
it bore positively no resemblance to itself as it had appeared just
before. His eyes, his mouth, his moustache, and even his beard, all were
new. Each time it was a beautiful and touching physiognomy, and these
transformations were produced suddenly in the penumbra; and for five
minutes it was the same face, that could not be compared to that of five
minutes before. And then, I know not how, it changed again, and became
unrecognizable.
CHAPTER IV
"Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful
history, yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than
the outcome."
He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and began:
"To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning. It
must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my marriage.
First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman of the
steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University pupil, a
graduate of the law school. I married in my thirtieth year. But before
talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived formerly, and
what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so many other
so-called respectable people, that is, in debauchery. And like the
majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was
a man of irreproachable morality.
"The idea that I had of my morality arose from the fact that in my family
there was no knowledge of those special debaucheries, so common in the
surroundings of land-owners, and also from the fact that my father and my
mother did not deceive each other. In consequence of this, I had built
from childhood a dream of high and poetical conjugal life. My wife was to
be perfection itself, our mutual love was to be incomparable, the purity
of our conjugal life stainless. I thought thus, and all the time I
marvelled at the nobility of my projects.
"At the same time, I passed ten years of my adult life without hurrying
toward marriage, and I led what I called the well-regulated and reasonable
life of a bachelor. I was proud of it before my friends, and before all
men of my age who abandoned themselves to all sorts of special
refinements. I was not a seducer, I had no unnatural tastes, I did not
make debauchery the principal object of my life; but I found pleasure
within the limits of society's rules, and innocently believed myself a
profoundly moral being. The women with whom I had relations did not belong
to me alone, and I asked of them nothing but the pleasure of the moment.
"In all this I saw nothing abnormal. On the contrary, from the fact that I
did not engage my heart, but paid in cash, I supposed that I was honest. I
avoided those women who, by attaching themselves to me, or presenting me
with a child, could bind my future. Moreover, perhaps there may have been
children or attachments; but I so arranged matters that I could not become
aware of them.
"And living thus, I considered myself a perfectly honest man. I did not
understand that debauchery does not consist simply in physical acts, that
no matter what physical ignominy does not yet constitute debauchery, and
that real debauchery consists in freedom from the moral bonds toward a
woman with whom one enters into carnal relations, and I regarded THIS
FREEDOM as a merit. I remember that I once tortured myself exceedingly for
having forgotten to pay a woman who probably had given herself to me
through love. I only became tranquil again when, having sent her the
money, I had thus shown her that I did not consider myself as in any way
bound to her. Oh, do not shake your head as if you were in agreement with
me (he cried suddenly with vehemence). I know these tricks. All of you,
and you especially, if you are not a rare exception, have the same ideas
that I had then. If you are in agreement with me, it is now only. Formerly
you did not think so. No more did I; and, if I had been told what I have
just told you, that which has happened would not have happened. However,
it is all the same. Excuse me (he continued): the truth is that it is
frightful, frightful, frightful, this abyss of errors and debaucheries in
which we live face to face with the real question of the rights of woman."
. . .
"What do you mean by the 'real' question of the rights of woman ?"
"The question of the nature of this special being, organized otherwise
than man, and how this being and man ought to view the wife. . . ."
CHAPTER V
"Yes: for ten years I lived the most revolting existence, while dreaming
of the noblest love, and even in the name of that love. Yes, I want to
tell you how I killed my wife, and for that I must tell you how I
debauched myself. I killed her before I knew her.
"I killed THE wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then
it was that I killed MY wife. Yes, sir: it is only after having suffered,
after having tortured myself, that I have come to understand the root of
things, that I have come to understand my crimes. Thus you will see where
and how began the drama that has led me to misfortune.
"It is necessary to go back to my sixteenth year, when I was still at
school, and my elder brother a first-year student. I had not yet known
women but, like all the unfortunate children of our society, I was already
no longer innocent. I was tortured, as you were, I am sure, and as are
tortured ninety-nine one-hundredths of our boys. I lived in a frightful
dread, I prayed to God, and I prostrated myself.
"I was already perverted in imagination, but the last steps remained to be
taken. I could still escape, when a friend of my brother, a very gay
student, one of those who are called good fellows, that is, the
greatest of scamps, and who had taught us to drink and play cards,
took advantage of a night of intoxication to drag us THERE. We started. My
brother, as innocent as I, fell that night, and I, a mere lad of sixteen,
polluted myself and helped to pollute a sister-woman, without
understanding what I did. Never had I heard from my elders that what I
thus did was bad. It is true that there are the ten commandments of the
Bible; but the commandments are made only to be recited before the priests
at examinations, and even then are not as exacting as the commandments in
regard to the use of ut in conditional propositions.
"Thus, from my elders, whose opinion I esteemed, I had never heard that
this was reprehensible. On the contrary, I had heard people whom I
respected say that it was good. I had heard that my struggles and my
sufferings would be appeased after this act. I had heard it and read it. I
had heard from my elders that it was excellent for the health, and my
friends have always seemed to believe that it contained I know not what
merit and valor. So nothing is seen in it but what is praiseworthy. As for
the danger of disease, it is a foreseen danger. Does not the government
guard against it? And even science corrupts us."
"How so, science ?" I asked.
"Why, the doctors, the pontiffs of science. Who pervert young people by
laying down such rules of hygiene ? Who pervert women by devising and
teaching them ways by which not to have children ?
"Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were
spent in curing debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist,
whereas now all efforts are employed, not in extirpating debauchery, but
in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of the consequences. Besides,
it is not a question of that. It is a question of this frightful thing
that has happened to me, as it happens to nine-tenths, if not more, not
only of the men of our society, but of all societies, even peasants, this
frightful thing that I had fallen, and not because I was subjected to the
natural seduction of a certain woman. No, no woman seduced me. I fell
because the surroundings in which I found myself saw in this degrading
thing only a legitimate function, useful to the health; because others saw
in it simply a natural amusement, not only excusable, but even innocent in
a young man. I did not understand that it was a fall, and I began to give
myself to those pleasures (partly from desire and partly from necessity)
which I was led to believe were characteristic of my age, just as I had
begun to drink and smoke.
"And yet there was in this first fall something peculiar and touching. I
remember that straightway I was filled with such a profound sadness that I
had a desire to weep, to weep over the loss forever of my relations with
woman. Yes, my relations with woman were lost forever. Pure relations with
women, from that time forward, I could no longer have. I had become what
is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a physical condition
like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit, of a drunkard, and
of a smoker.
"Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is no
longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for his
pleasure is no longer normal? He is abnormal forever. He is a voluptuary.
Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit may be
recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a voluptuary. He
may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he enjoy simple,
pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of glancing at a
young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I became a
voluptuary, and I have remained one."
CHAPTER VI
"Yes, so it is; and that went farther and farther with all sorts of
variations. My God ! when I remember all my cowardly acts and bad deeds, I
am frightened. And I remember that 'me' who, during that period, was still
the butt of his comrades' ridicule on account of his innocence.
"And when I hear people talk of the gilded youth, of the officers, of the
Parisians, and all these gentlemen, and myself, living wild lives at the
age of thirty, and who have on our consciences hundreds of crimes toward
women, terrible and varied, when we enter a parlor or a ball-room, washed,
shaven, and perfumed, with very white linen, in dress coats or in uniform,
as emblems of purity, oh, the disgust! There will surely come a time, an
epoch, when all these lives and all this cowardice will be unveiled !
"So, nevertheless, I lived, until the age of thirty, without abandoning
for a minute my intention of marrying, and building an elevated conjugal
life; and with this in view I watched all young girls who might suit me. I
was buried in rottenness, and at the same time I looked for virgins, whose
purity was worthy of me! Many of them were rejected: they did not seem to
me pure enough !
"Finally I found one that I considered on a level with myself. She was one
of two daughters of a landed proprietor of Penza, formerly very rich and
since ruined. To tell the truth, without false modesty, they pursued me
and finally captured me. The mother (the father was away) laid all sorts
of traps, and one of these, a trip in a boat, decided my future.
"I made up my mind at the end of the aforesaid trip one night, by
moonlight, on our way home, while I was sitting beside her. I admired her
slender body, whose charming shape was moulded by a jersey, and her
curling hair, and I suddenly concluded that THIS WAS SHE. It seemed to me
on that beautiful evening that she understood all that I thought and felt,
and I thought and felt the most elevating things.
"Really, it was only the jersey that was so becoming to her, and her curly
hair, and also the fact that I had spent the day beside her, and that I
desired a more intimate relation.
"I returned home enthusiastic, and I persuaded myself that she realized
the highest perfection, and that for that reason she was worthy to be my
wife, and the next day I made to her a proposal of marriage.
"No, say what you will, we live in such an abyss of falsehood, that,
unless some event strikes us a blow on the head, as in my case, we cannot
awaken. What confusion! Out of the thousands of men who marry, not only
among us, but also among the people, scarcely will you find a single one
who has not previously married at least ten times. (It is true that there
now exist, at least so I have heard, pure young people who feel and know
that this is not a joke, but a serious matter. May God come to their aid!
But in my time there was not to be found one such in a thousand.)
"And all know it, and pretend not to know it. In all the novels are
described down to the smallest details the feelings of the characters, the
lakes and brambles around which they walk; but, when it comes to
describing their GREAT love, not a word is breathed of what HE, the
interesting character, has previously done, not a word about his
frequenting of disreputable houses, or his association with nursery-maids,
cooks, and the wives of others.
"And if anything is said of these things, such IMPROPER novels are not
allowed in the hands of young girls. All men have the air of believing, in
presence of maidens, that these corrupt pleasures, in which EVERYBODY
takes part, do not exist, or exist only to a very small extent. They
pretend it so carefully that they succeed in convincing themselves of it.
As for the poor young girls, they believe it quite seriously, just as my
poor wife believed it.
"I remember that, being already engaged, I showed her my 'memoirs,' from
which she could learn more or less of my past, and especially my last
liaison which she might perhaps have discovered through the gossip of some
third party. It was for this last reason, for that matter, that I felt the
necessity of communicating these memoirs to her. I can still see her
fright, her despair, her bewilderment, when she had learned and understood
it. She was on the point of breaking the engagement. What a lucky thing it
would have been for both of us!"
Posdnicheff was silent for a moment, and then resumed:
"After all, no! It is better that things happened as they did, better !" he
cried. "It was a good thing for me. Besides, it makes no difference. I was
saying that in these cases it is the poor young girls who are deceived. As
for the mothers, the mothers especially, informed by their husbands, they
know all, and, while pretending to believe in the purity of the young man,
they act as if they did not believe in it.
"They know what bait must be held out to people for themselves and their
daughters. We men sin through ignorance, and a determination not to learn.
As for the women, they know very well that the noblest and most poetic
love, as we call it, depends, not on moral qualities, but on the physical
intimacy, and also on the manner of doing the hair, and the color and
shape.
"Ask an experienced coquette, who has undertaken to seduce a man, which
she would prefer, to be convicted, in presence of the man whom she
is engaged in conquering, of falsehood, perversity, cruelty, or to appear
before him in an ill-fitting dress, or a dress of an unbecoming color. She
will prefer the first alternative. She knows very well that we simply lie
when we talk of our elevated sentiments, that we seek only the possession
of her body, and that because of that we will forgive her every sort of
baseness, but will not forgive her a costume of an ugly shade, without
taste or fit.
"And these things she knows by reason, where as the maiden knows them only
by instinct, like the animal. Hence these abominable jerseys, these
artificial humps on the back, these bare shoulders, arms, and throats.
"Women, especially those who have passed through the school of marriage,
know very well that conversations upon elevated subjects are only
conversations, and that man seeks and desires the body and all that
ornaments the body. Consequently, they act accordingly ? If we reject
conventional explanations, and view the life of our upper and lower
classes as it is, with all its shamelessness, it is only a vast
perversity. You do not share this opinion ? Permit me, I am going to prove
it to you (said he, interrupting me).
"You say that the women of our society live for a different interest from
that which actuates fallen women. And I say no, and I am going to prove it
to you. If beings differ from one another according to the purpose of
their life, according to their INNER LIFE, this will necessarily be
reflected also in their OUTER LIFE, and their exterior will be very
different. Well, then, compare the wretched, the despised, with the women
of the highest society: the same dresses, the same fashions, the same
perfumeries, the same passion for jewelry, for brilliant and very
expensive articles, the same amusements, dances, music, and songs. The
former attract by all possible means; so do the latter. No difference,
none whatever !
"Yes, and I, too, was captivated by jerseys, bustles, and curly hair."
CHAPTER VII
"And it was very easy to capture me, since I was brought up under
artificial conditions, like cucumbers in a hothouse. Our too abundant
nourishment, together with complete physical idleness, is nothing but
systematic excitement of the imagination. The men of our society are fed
and kept like reproductive stallions. It is sufficient to close the valve, that
is, for a young man to live a quiet life for some time, to produce
as an immediate result a restlessness, which, becoming exaggerated by
reflection through the prism of our unnatural life, provokes the illusion
of love.
"All our idyls and marriage, all, are the result for the most part of our
eating. Does that astonish you ? For my part, I am astonished that we do
not see it. Not far from my estate this spring some moujiks were working
on a railway embankment. You know what a peasant's food is, bread,
kvass,* onions.
With this frugal nourishment he lives, he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this bill of fare becomes cacha and a pound of meat. Only he restores this meat by sixteen hours of labor pushing loads weighing twelve hundred pounds.
With this frugal nourishment he lives, he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this bill of fare becomes cacha and a pound of meat. Only he restores this meat by sixteen hours of labor pushing loads weighing twelve hundred pounds.
*(Kvass, a sort of cider).
"And we, who eat two pounds of meat and game, we who absorb all sorts of
heating drinks and food, how do we expend it? In sensual excesses. If the
valve is open, all goes well; but close it, as I had closed it temporarily
before my marriage, and immediately there will result an excitement which,
deformed by novels, verses, music, by our idle and luxurious life, will
give a love of the finest water. I, too, fell in love, as everybody does,
and there were transports, emotions, poesy; but really all this passion
was prepared by mamma and the dressmakers. If there had been no trips in
boats, no well-fitted garments, etc., if my wife had worn some shapeless
blouse, and I had seen her thus at her home, I should not have been
seduced."
CHAPTER VIII
"And note, also, this falsehood, of which all are guilty; the way in which
marriages are made. What could there be more natural ? The young girl is
marriageable, she should marry. What simpler, provided the young person is
not a monster, and men can be found with a desire to marry ? Well, no, here
begins a new hypocrisy.
"Formerly, when the maiden arrived at a favorable age, her marriage was
arranged by her parents. That was done, that is done still, throughout
humanity, among the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Mussulmans, and among our
common people also. Things are so managed in at least ninety-nine per
cent. of the families of the entire human race.
"Only we riotous livers have imagined that this way was bad, and have
invented another. And this other, what is it ? It is this. The young
girls are seated, and the gentlemen walk up and down before them, as in a
bazaar, and make their choice. The maidens wait and think, but do not dare
to say: 'Take me, young man, me and not her. Look at these shoulders and
the rest.' We males walk up and down, and estimate the merchandise, and
then we discourse upon the rights of woman, upon the liberty that she
acquires, I know not how, in the theatrical halls."
"But what is to be done ?" said I to him. "Shall the woman make the
advances ?"
"I do not know. But, if it is a question of equality, let the equality be
complete. Though it has been found that to contract marriages through the
agency of match-makers is humiliating, it is nevertheless a thousand times
preferable to our system. There the rights and the chances are equal; here
the woman is a slave, exhibited in the market. But as she cannot bend to
her condition, or make advances herself, there begins that other and more
abominable lie which is sometimes called GOING INTO SOCIETY, sometimes
AMUSING ONE'S SELF, and which is really nothing but the hunt for a
husband.
"But say to a mother or to her daughter that they are engaged only in a
hunt for a husband. God ! What an offence ! Yet they can do nothing else,
and have nothing else to do; and the terrible feature of it all is to see
sometimes very young, poor, and innocent maidens haunted solely by such
ideas. If only, I repeat, it were done frankly; but it is always
accompanied with lies and babble of this sort:
"'Ah, the descent of species! How interesting it is !'
"'Oh, Lily is much interested in painting.'
"'Shall you go to the Exposition ? How charming it is !'
"'And the troika, and the plays, and the symphony. Ah, how adorable !'
"'My Lise is passionately fond of music.'
"'And you, why do you not share these convictions ?'
"And through all this verbiage, all have but one single idea: 'Take me,
take my Lise. No, me ! Only try !"'
CHAPTER IX
"Do you know," suddenly continued Posdnicheff, "that this power of women
from which the world suffers arises solely from what I have just spoken
of ?"
"What do you mean by the power of women ?" I said. "Everybody, on the
contrary, complains that women have not sufficient rights, that they are
in subjection."
"That's it; that's it exactly," said he, vivaciously. "That is just what I
mean, and that is the explanation of this extraordinary phenomenon, that
on the one hand woman is reduced to the lowest degree of humiliation and
on the other hand she reigns over everything. See the Jews: with their
power of money, they avenge their subjection, just as the women do. 'Ah!
you wish us to be only merchants? All right; remaining merchants, we will
get possession of you,' say the Jews. 'Ah ! you wish us to be only objects
of sensuality ? All right; by the aid of sensuality we will bend you
beneath our yoke,' say the women.
"The absence of the rights of woman does not consist in the fact that she
has not the right to vote, or the right to sit on the bench, but in the
fact that in her affectional relations she is not the equal of man, she
has not the right to abstain, to choose instead of being chosen. You say
that that would be abnormal. Very well! But then do not let man enjoy
these rights, while his companion is deprived of them, and finds herself
obliged to make use of the coquetry by which she governs, so that the
result is that man chooses 'formally,' whereas really it is woman who
chooses. As soon as she is in possession of her means, she abuses them,
and acquires a terrible supremacy."
"But where do you see this exceptional power ?"
"Where ? Why, everywhere, in everything. Go see the stores in the large
cities. There are millions there, millions. It is impossible to estimate
the enormous quantity of labor that is expended there. In nine-tenths of
these stores is there anything whatever for the use of men ? All the luxury
of life is demanded and sustained by woman. Count the factories; the
greater part of them are engaged in making feminine ornaments. Millions of
men, generations of slaves, die toiling like convicts simply to satisfy
the whims of our companions.
"Women, like queens, keep nine-tenths of the human race as prisoners of
war, or as prisoners at hard labor. And all this because they have been
humiliated, because they have been deprived of rights equal to those which
men enjoy. They take revenge for our sensuality; they catch us in their
nets.
"Yes, the whole thing is there. Women have made of themselves such a
weapon to act upon the senses that a young man, and even an old man,
cannot remain tranquil in their presence. Watch a popular festival, or our
receptions or ball-rooms. Woman well knows her influence there. You will
see it in her triumphant smiles.
"As soon as a young man advances toward a woman, directly he falls under
the influence of this opium, and loses his head. Long ago I felt ill at
ease when I saw a woman too well adorned, whether a woman of the
people with her red neckerchief and her looped skirt, or a woman of our
own society in her ball-room dress. But now it simply terrifies me. I see
in it a danger to men, something contrary to the laws; and I feel a desire
to call a policeman, to appeal for defence from some quarter, to demand
that this dangerous object be removed.
"And this is not a joke, by any means. I am convinced, I am sure, that the
time will come and perhaps it is not far distant when the
world will understand this, and will be astonished that a society could
exist in which actions as harmful as those which appeal to sensuality by
adorning the body as our companions do were allowed. As well set traps
along our public streets, or worse than that."
CHAPTER X
"That, then, was the way in which I was captured. I was in love, as it is
called; not only did she appear to me a perfect being, but I considered
myself a white blackbird. It is a commonplace fact that there is no one so
low in the world that he cannot find some one viler than himself, and
consequently puff with pride and self-contentment. I was in that
situation. I did not marry for money. Interest was foreign to the affair,
unlike the marriages of most of my acquaintances, who married either for
money or for relations. First, I was rich, she was poor. Second, I was
especially proud of the fact that, while others married with an intention
of continuing their polygamic life as bachelors, it was my firm intention
to live monogamically after my engagement and the wedding, and my pride
swelled immeasurably.
"Yes, I was a wretch, convinced that I was an angel. The period of my
engagement did not last long. I cannot remember those days without shame.
What an abomination !
"It is generally agreed that love is a moral sentiment, a community of
thought rather than of sense. If that is the case, this community of
thought ought to find expression in words and conversation. Nothing of the
sort. It was extremely difficult for us to talk with each other. What a
toil of Sisyphus was our conversation! Scarcely had we thought of
something to say, and said it, when we had to resume our silence and try
to discover new subjects. Literally, we did not know what to say to each
other. All that we could think of concerning the life that was before us
and our home was said.
"And then what ? If we had been animals, we should have known that we had
not to talk. But here, on the contrary, it was necessary to talk, and
there were no resources! For that which occupied our minds was not a thing
to be expressed in words.
"And then that silly custom of eating bon-bons, that brutal gluttony for
sweetmeats, those abominable preparations for the wedding, those
discussions with mamma upon the apartments, upon the sleeping-rooms, upon
the bedding, upon the morning-gowns, upon the wrappers, the linen, the
costumes! Understand that if people married according to the old fashion,
as this old man said just now, then these eiderdown coverlets and this
bedding would all be sacred details; but with us, out of ten married
people there is scarcely to be found one who, I do not say believes in
sacraments (whether he believes or not is a matter of indifference to us),
but believes in what he promises. Out of a hundred men, there is scarcely
one who has not married before, and out of fifty scarcely one who has not
made up his mind to deceive his wife.
"The great majority look upon this journey to the church as a condition
necessary to the possession of a certain woman. Think then of the supreme
significance which material details must take on. Is it not a sort of
sale, in which a maiden is given over to a debauche, the sale being
surrounded with the most agreeable details ?"
CHAPTER XI
"All marry in this way. And I did like the rest. If the young people who
dream of the honeymoon only knew what a disillusion it is, and always a
disillusion ! I really do not know why all think it necessary to conceal
it.
"One day I was walking among the shows in Paris, when, attracted by a
sign, I entered an establishment to see a bearded woman and a water-dog.
The woman was a man in disguise, and the dog was an ordinary dog, covered
with a sealskin, and swimming in a bath. It was not in the least
interesting, but the Barnum accompanied me to the exit very courteously,
and, in addressing the people who were coming in, made an appeal to my
testimony. 'Ask the gentleman if it is not worth seeing ! Come in, come in!
It only costs a franc !' And in my confusion I did not dare to answer that
there was nothing curious to be seen, and it was upon my false shame that
the Barnum must have counted.
"It must be the same with the persons who have passed through the
abominations of the honeymoon. They do not dare to undeceive their
neighbor. And I did the same.
"The felicities of the honeymoon do not exist. On the contrary, it is a
period of uneasiness, of shame, of pity, and, above all, of ennui, of
ferocious ennui. It is something like the feeling of a youth when he is
beginning to smoke. He desires to vomit; he drivels, and swallows his
drivel, pretending to enjoy this little amusement. The vice of marriage .
. ."
"What! Vice ?" I said. "But you are talking of one of the most natural
things."
"Natural !" said he. "Natural ! No, I consider on the contrary that it is
against nature, and it is I, a perverted man, who have reached this
conviction. What would it be, then, if I had not known corruption ? To a
young girl, to every unperverted young girl, it is an act extremely
unnatural, just as it is to children. My sister married, when very young,
a man twice her own age, and who was utterly corrupt. I remember how
astonished we were the night of her wedding, when, pale and covered with
tears, she fled from her husband, her whole body trembling, saying that
for nothing in the world would she tell what he wanted of her.
"You say natural ? It is natural to eat; that is a pleasant, agreeable
function, which no one is ashamed to perform from the time of his birth.
No, it is not natural. A pure young girl wants one thing, children.
Children, yes, not a lover." . . .
"But," said I, with astonishment, "how would the human race continue ?"
"But what is the use of its continuing ?" he rejoined, vehemently.
"What! What is the use ? But then we should not exist."
"And why is it necessary that we should exist ?"
"Why, to live, to be sure."
"And why live ? The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists,
say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are right
in this sense, that human happiness is coincident with the
annihilation of 'Self.' Only they do not express themselves well. They say
that Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings, that its
object should be to destroy itself. Now the object of Humanity cannot be
to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the result of
activity. The object of activity cannot consist in suppressing its
consequences. The object of Man, as of Humanity, is happiness, and, to
attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry out. This law consists
in the union of beings. This union is thwarted by the passions. And that
is why, if the passions disappear, the union will be accomplished.
Humanity then will have carried out the law, and will have no further
reason to exist."
"And before Humanity carries out the law ?"
"In the meantime it will have the sign of the unfulfilled law, and the
existence of physical love. As long as this love shall exist, and because
of it, generations will be born, one of which will finally fulfil the law.
When at last the law shall be fulfilled, the Human Race will be
annihilated. At least it is impossible for us to conceive of Life in the
perfect union of people."
CHAPTER XII
"Strange theory !" cried I.
"Strange in what ? According to all the doctrines of the Church, the world
will have an end. Science teaches the same fatal conclusions. Why, then,
is it strange that the same thing should result from moral Doctrine ? 'Let
those who can, contain,' said Christ. And I take this passage literally,
as it is written. That morality may exist between people in their worldly
relations, they must make complete chastity their object. In tending
toward this end, man humiliates himself. When he shall reach the last
degree of humiliation, we shall have moral marriage.
"But if man, as in our society, tends only toward physical love, though he
may clothe it with pretexts and the false forms of marriage, he will have
only permissible debauchery, he will know only the same immoral life in
which I fell and caused my wife to fall, a life which we call the honest
life of the family. Think what a perversion of ideas must arise when the
happiest situation of man, liberty, chastity, is looked upon as something
wretched and ridiculous. The highest ideal, the best situation of woman,
to be pure, to be a vestal, a virgin, excites fear and laughter in our
society. How many, how many young girls sacrifice their purity to this
Moloch of opinion by marrying rascals that they may not remain virgins, that
is, superiors ! Through fear of finding themselves in that ideal state,
they ruin themselves.
"But I did not understand formerly, I did not understand that the words of
the Gospel, that 'he who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already
committed adultery,' do not apply to the wives of others, but notably and
especially to our own wives. I did not understand this, and I thought that
the honeymoon and all of my acts during that period were virtuous, and
that to satisfy one's desires with his wife is an eminently chaste thing.
Know, then, that I consider these departures, these isolations, which
young married couples arrange with the permission of their parents, as
nothing else than a license to engage in debauchery.
"I saw, then, in this nothing bad or shameful, and, hoping for great joys,
I began to live the honeymoon. And very certainly none of these joys
followed. But I had faith, and was determined to have them, cost what they
might. But the more I tried to secure them, the less I succeeded. All this
time I felt anxious, ashamed, and weary. Soon I began to suffer. I believe
that on the third or fourth day I found my wife sad and asked her the
reason. I began to embrace her, which in my opinion was all that she could
desire. She put me away with her hand, and began to weep.
"At what ? She could not tell me. She was filled with sorrow, with anguish.
Probably her tortured nerves had suggested to her the truth about the
baseness of our relations, but she found no words in which to say it. I
began to question her; she answered that she missed her absent mother. It
seemed to me that she was not telling the truth. I sought to console her
by maintaining silence in regard to her parents. I did not imagine that
she felt herself simply overwhelmed, and that her parents had nothing to
do with her sorrow. She did not listen to me, and I accused her of
caprice. I began to laugh at her gently. She dried her tears, and began to
reproach me, in hard and wounding terms, for my selfishness and cruelty.
"I looked at her. Her whole face expressed hatred, and hatred of me. I
cannot describe to you the fright which this sight gave me. 'How? What?'
thought I, 'love is the unity of souls, and here she hates me ? Me ? Why ?
But it is impossible ! It is no longer she !'
"I tried to calm her. I came in conflict with an immovable and cold
hostility, so that, having no time to reflect, I was seized with keen
irritation. We exchanged disagreeable remarks. The impression of this
first quarrel was terrible. I say quarrel, but the term is inexact. It was
the sudden discovery of the abyss that had been dug between us. Love was
exhausted with the satisfaction of sensuality. We stood face to face in
our true light, like two egoists trying to procure the greatest possible
enjoyment, like two individuals trying to mutually exploit each other.
"So what I called our quarrel was our actual situation as it appeared
after the satisfaction of sensual desire. I did not realize that this cold
hostility was our normal state, and that this first quarrel would soon be
drowned under a new flood of the intensest sensuality. I thought that we
had disputed with each other, and had become reconciled, and that it would
not happen again. But in this same honeymoon there came a period of
satiety, in which we ceased to be necessary to each other, and a new
quarrel broke out.
"It became evident that the first was not a matter of chance. 'It was
inevitable,' I thought. This second quarrel stupefied me the more, because
it was based on an extremely unjust cause. It was something like a
question of money,—and never had I haggled on that score; it was
even impossible that I should do so in relation to her. I only remember
that, in answer to some remark that I made, she insinuated that it was my
intention to rule her by means of money, and that it was upon money that I
based my sole right over her. In short, something extraordinarily stupid
and base, which was neither in my character nor in hers.
"I was beside myself. I accused her of indelicacy. She made the same
accusation against me, and the dispute broke out. In her words, in the
expression of her face, of her eyes, I noticed again the hatred that had
so astonished me before. With a brother, friends, my father, I had
occasionally quarrelled, but never had there been between us this fierce
spite. Some time passed. Our mutual hatred was again concealed beneath an
access of sensual desire, and I again consoled myself with the reflection
that these scenes were reparable faults.
"But when they were repeated a third and a fourth time, I understood that
they were not simply faults, but a fatality that must happen again. I was
no longer frightened, I was simply astonished that I should be precisely
the one to live so uncomfortably with my wife, and that the same thing did
not happen in other households. I did not know that in all households the
same sudden changes take place, but that all, like myself, imagine that it
is a misfortune exclusively reserved for themselves alone, which they
carefully conceal as shameful, not only to others, but to themselves, like
a bad disease.
"That was what happened to me. Begun in the early days, it continued and
increased with characteristics of fury that were ever more pronounced. At
the bottom of my soul, from the first weeks, I felt that I was in a trap,
that I had what I did not expect, and that marriage is not a joy, but a
painful trial. Like everybody else, I refused to confess it (I should not
have confessed it even now but for the outcome). Now I am astonished to
think that I did not see my real situation. It was so easy to perceive it,
in view of those quarrels, begun for reasons so trivial that afterwards
one could not recall them.
"Just as it often happens among gay young people that, in the absence of
jokes, they laugh at their own laughter, so we found no reasons for our
hatred, and we hated each other because hatred was naturally boiling up in
us. More extraordinary still was the absence of causes for reconciliation.
"Sometimes words, explanations, or even tears, but sometimes, I remember,
after insulting words, there tacitly followed embraces and declarations.
Abomination! Why is it that I did not then perceive this baseness ?"
CHAPTER XIII
"All of us, men and women, are brought up in these aberrations of feeling
that we call love. I from childhood had prepared myself for this thing,
and I loved, and I loved during all my youth, and I was joyous in loving.
It had been put into my head that it was the noblest and highest
occupation in the world. But when this expected feeling came at last, and
I, a man, abandoned myself to it, the lie was pierced through and through.
Theoretically a lofty love is conceivable; practically it is an ignoble
and degrading thing, which it is equally disgusting to talk about and to
remember. It is not in vain that nature has made ceremonies, but people
pretend that the ignoble and the shameful is beautiful and lofty.
"I will tell you brutally and briefly what were the first signs of my
love. I abandoned myself to beastly excesses, not only not ashamed of
them, but proud of them, giving no thought to the intellectual life of my
wife. And not only did I not think of her intellectual life, I did not
even consider her physical life.
"I was astonished at the origin of our hostility, and yet how clear it
was ! This hostility is nothing but a protest of human nature against the
beast that enslaves it. It could not be otherwise. This hatred was the
hatred of accomplices in a crime. Was it not a crime that, this poor woman
having become pregnant in the first month, our liaison should have
continued just the same ?
"You imagine that I am wandering from my story. Not at all. I am always
giving you an account of the events that led to the murder of my wife. The
imbeciles! They think that I killed my wife on the 5th of October. It was
long before that that I immolated her, just as they all kill now.
Understand well that in our society there is an idea shared by all that
woman procures man pleasure (and vice versa, probably, but I know nothing
of that, I only know my own case). Wein, Weiber und Gesang. So say the
poets in their verses: Wine, women, and song !
"If it were only that! Take all the poetry, the painting, the sculpture,
beginning with Pouschkine's 'Little Feet,' with 'Venus and Phryne,' and
you will see that woman is only a means of enjoyment. That is what she is
at Trouba,* at Gratchevka, and in a court ball-room. And think of this
diabolical trick: if she were a thing without moral value, it might be
said that woman is a fine morsel; but, in the first place, these knights
assure us that they adore woman (they adore her and look upon her,
however, as a means of enjoyment), then all assure us that they esteem
woman. Some give up their seats to her, pick up her handkerchief; others
recognize in her a right to fill all offices, participate in government,
etc., but, in spite of all that, the essential point remains the same. She
is, she remains, an object of sensual desire, and she knows it. It is
slavery, for slavery is nothing else than the utilization of the labor of
some for the enjoyment of others. That slavery may not exist people must
refuse to enjoy the labor of others, and look upon it as a shameful act
and as a sin.
*(A suburb of Moscow).
"Actually, this is what happens. They abolish the external form, they
suppress the formal sales of slaves, and then they imagine and assure
others that slavery is abolished. They are unwilling to see that it still
exists, since people, as before, like to profit by the labor of others,
and think it good and just. This being given, there will always be found
beings stronger or more cunning than others to profit thereby. The same
thing happens in the emancipation of woman. At bottom feminine servitude
consists entirely in her assimilation with a means of pleasure. They
excite woman, they give her all sorts of rights equal to those of men, but
they continue to look upon her as an object of sensual desire, and thus
they bring her up from infancy and in public opinion.
"She is always the humiliated and corrupt serf, and man remains always the
debauched Master. Yes, to abolish slavery, public opinion must admit that
it is shameful to exploit one's neighbor, and, to make woman free, public
opinion must admit that it is shameful to consider woman as an instrument
of pleasure.
"The emancipation of woman is not to be effected in the public courts or
in the chamber of deputies, but in the sleeping chamber. Prostitution is
to be combated, not in the houses of ill-fame, but in the family. They
free woman in the public courts and in the chamber of deputies, but she
remains an instrument. Teach her, as she is taught among us, to look upon
herself as such, and she will always remain an inferior being. Either,
with the aid of the rascally doctors, she will try to prevent conception,
and descend, not to the level of an animal, but to the level of a thing;
or she will be what she is in the great majority of cases, sick,
hysterical, wretched, without hope of spiritual progress." . . .
"But why that ?" I asked.
"Oh! the most astonishing thing is that no one is willing to see this
thing, evident as it is, which the doctors must understand, but which they
take good care not to do. Man does not wish to know the law of nature, children.
But children are born and become an embarrassment. Then man devises means
of avoiding this embarrassment. We have not yet reached the low level of
Europe, nor Paris, nor the 'system of two children,' nor Mahomet. We have
discovered nothing, because we have given it no thought. We feel that
there is something bad in the two first means; but we wish to preserve the
family, and our view of woman is still worse.
"With us woman must be at the same time mistress and nurse, and her
strength is not sufficient. That is why we have hysteria, nervous attacks,
and, among the peasants, witchcraft. Note that among the young girls of
the peasantry this state of things does not exist, but only among the
wives, and the wives who live with their husbands. The reason is clear,
and this is the cause of the intellectual and moral decline of woman, and
of her abasement.
"If they would only reflect what a grand work for the wife is the period
of gestation ! In her is forming the being who continues us, and this holy
work is thwarted and rendered painful . . . by what ? It is frightful to
think of it ! And after that they talk of the liberties and the rights of
woman ! It is like the cannibals fattening their prisoners in order to
devour them, and assuring these unfortunates at the same time that their
rights and their liberties are guarded !"
All this was new to me, and astonished me very much.
"But if this is so," said I, "it follows that one may love his wife only
once every two years; and as man" . . .
"And as man has need of her, you are going to say. At least, so the
priests of science assure us. I would force these priests to fulfil the
function of these women, who, in their opinion, are necessary to man. I
wonder what song they would sing then. Assure man that he needs brandy,
tobacco, opium, and he will believe those poisons necessary. It follows
that God did not know how to arrange matters properly, since, without
asking the opinions of the priests, he has combined things as they are.
Man needs, so they have decided, to satisfy his sensual desire, and here
this function is disturbed by the birth and the nursing of children.
"What, then, is to be done ? Why, apply to the priests; they will arrange
everything, and they have really discovered a way. When, then, will these
rascals with their lies be uncrowned! It is high time. We have had enough
of them. People go mad, and shoot each other with revolvers, and always
because of that! And how could it be otherwise ?
"One would say that the animals know that descent continues their race,
and that they follow a certain law in regard thereto. Only man does not
know this, and is unwilling to know it. He cares only to have as much
sensual enjoyment as possible. The king of nature, man ! In the name
of his love he kills half the human race. Of woman, who ought to be his
aid in the movement of humanity toward liberty, he makes, in the name of
his pleasures, not an aid, but an enemy. Who is it that everywhere puts a
check upon the progressive movement of humanity? Woman. Why is it so ?
"For the reason that I have given, and for that reason only."
CHAPTER XIV
"Yes, much worse than the animal is man when he does not live as a man.
Thus was I. The horrible part is that I believed, inasmuch as I did not
allow myself to be seduced by other women that I was leading an honest
family life, that I was a very mortal being, and that if we had quarrels,
the fault was in my wife, and in her character.
"But it is evident that the fault was not in her. She was like everybody
else, like the majority. She was brought up according to the principles
exacted by the situation of our society, that is, as all the young
girls of our wealthy classes, without exception, are brought up, and as
they cannot fail to be brought up. How many times we hear or read of
reflections upon the abnormal condition of women, and upon what they ought
to be. But these are only vain words. The education of women results from
the real and not imaginary view which the world entertains of women's
vocation. According to this view, the condition of women consists in
procuring pleasure and it is to that end that her education is directed.
From her infancy she is taught only those things that are calculated to
increase her charm. Every young girl is accustomed to think only of that.
"As the serfs were brought up solely to please their masters, so woman is
brought up to attract men. It cannot be otherwise. But you will say,
perhaps, that that applies only to young girls who are badly brought up,
but that there is another education, an education that is serious, in the
schools, an education in the dead languages, an education in the
institutions of midwifery, an education in medical courses, and in other
courses. It is false.
"Every sort of feminine education has for its sole object the attraction
of men.
"Some attract by music or curly hair, others by science or by civic
virtue. The object is the same, and cannot be otherwise (since no other
object exists), to seduce man in order to possess him. Imagine
courses of instruction for women and feminine science without men, that
is, learned women, and men not KNOWING them as learned. Oh, no! No
education, no instruction can change woman as long as her highest ideal
shall be marriage and not virginity, freedom from sensuality. Until that
time she will remain a serf. One need only imagine, forgetting the
universality of the case, the conditions in which our young girls are
brought up, to avoid astonishment at the debauchery of the women of our
upper classes. It is the opposite that would cause astonishment.
"Follow my reasoning. From infancy garments, ornaments, cleanliness,
grace, dances, music, reading of poetry, novels, singing, the theatre, the
concert, for use within and without, according as women listen, or
practice themselves. With that, complete physical idleness, an excessive
care of the body, a vast consumption of sweetmeats; and God knows how the
poor maidens suffer from their own sensuality, excited by all these
things. Nine out of ten are tortured intolerably during the first period
of maturity, and afterward provided they do not marry at the age of
twenty. That is what we are unwilling to see, but those who have eyes see
it all the same. And even the majority of these unfortunate creatures are
so excited by a hidden sensuality (and it is lucky if it is hidden) that
they are fit for nothing. They become animated only in the presence of
men. Their whole life is spent in preparations for coquetry, or in
coquetry itself. In the presence of men they become too animated; they
begin to live by sensual energy. But the moment the man goes away, the
life stops.
"And that, not in the presence of a certain man, but in the presence of
any man, provided he is not utterly hideous. You will say that this is an
exception. No, it is a rule. Only in some it is made very evident, in
other less so. But no one lives by her own life; they are all dependent
upon man. They cannot be otherwise, since to them the attraction of the
greatest number of men is the ideal of life (young girls and married
women), and it is for this reason that they have no feeling stronger than
that of the animal need of every female who tries to attract the largest
number of males in order to increase the opportunities for choice. So it
is in the life of young girls, and so it continues during marriage. In the
life of young girls it is necessary in order to selection, and in marriage
it is necessary in order to rule the husband. Only one thing suppresses or
interrupts these tendencies for a time, namely, children, and
then only when the woman is not a monster, that is, when she nurses
her own children. Here again the doctor interferes.
"With my wife, who desired to nurse her own children, and who did nurse
six of them, it happened that the first child was sickly. The doctors, who
cynically undressed her and felt of her everywhere, and whom I had to
thank and pay for these acts, these dear doctors decided that she
ought not to nurse her child, and she was temporarily deprived of the only
remedy for coquetry. A nurse finished the nursing of this first-born, that
is to say, we profited by the poverty and ignorance of a woman to steal
her from her own little one in favor of ours, and for that purpose we
dressed her in a kakoschnik trimmed with gold lace. Nevertheless, that is
not the question; but there was again awakened in my wife that coquetry
which had been sleeping during the nursing period. Thanks to that, she
reawakened in me the torments of jealousy which I had formerly known,
though in a much slighter degree."