The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
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 _débauché_, 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