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 sation. "I may repeat it before my daughters: 'Long hair....'"

"That is the way we judged the negroes before their emancipation!" said Pestsof, with dissatisfaction.

"What astonishes me," said Sergyeï Ivanuitch, "is that women are seeking new duties, when we see, unfortunately, that men generally shirk theirs."

"Duties are accompanied by rights; honor, influence, money, these are what women are after," said Pestsof.

"Exactly as if I solicited the right to become a wet nurse, and found it hard to be refused, while women are paid for it," said the old prince.

Turovtsuin burst out laughing, and Sergyeï Ivanovitch regretted that he had not said that. Even Alekseï Aleksandrovitch smiled.

"Yes, but a man can't be a wet nurse," said Sergyeï Ivanuitch, "But a woman ...."

"But what is a young girl without any family going to do?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, who found reason to sympathize with Pestsof, as he thought of his little ballet girl, Chibisovaya.

"If you look closely into the lives of these young girls," said Darya Aleksandrovna, unexpectedly taking part in the conversation and showing some irritation, for it was evident that she suspected what sort of women Stepan Arkadyevitch meant, "you will doubtless find that they have left a family or a sister, and that women's work was within their reach."

"But we are defending a principle, an ideal," answered Pestsof, in his ringing bass. "Woman claims the right to be independent and educated; she suffers from her consciousness of being unable to accomplish this."

"And I suffer from not being admitted as nurse to the foundling asylum," repeated the old prince, to the great amusement of Turovtsuin, letting the large end of a piece of asparagus fall into his sauce.