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306 is not weakened entirely. Now for these most likely chances he did not want to weaken your powers of resistance. And this is the motive that he had in leaving you unprepared and subjecting you to so much suffering. How does this strike you?"

"It is not true, Rakhmétof. He has never hidden from me any of his thoughts. His convictions were as well known to me as they were to you."

"Of course, Viéra Pavlovna, to hide them would have been too much. To interfere with the development of your convictions, so as to gratify his own convictions, and for this reason to make believe think differently from what he really thinks,—this would have been an absolutely dishonorable thing. Such a man you could never love. Did I call him a bad man? He was a very good man; in what respect was he not good? Yes, I shall praise him to your heart's content. I only say that before this matter arose: after it arose, he behaved towards you very nobly; but before it arose, he acted unkindly towards you. Why did you torment yourself so? He said—and then there was no need of saying it, because it was self-evident—that you did it, so that you might not grieve him. How could this thought have occurred to you, that this would greatly grieve him? You ought not to have had such an idea. What kind of grief was that? It was stupid. What kind of jealousy is that?"

"Don't you recognize such a thing as jealousy, Rakhmétof?"

"In an intelligent person it has no right to exist. It is a mutilated feeling, it is a false feeling, a contemptible feeling; it is the result of that order of things, according to which I don't allow anybody to wear my underclothes, smoke my meerschaum; this is the result of viewing a person as personal property, as a chattel."

"But, Rakhmétof, if jealousy should not be acknowledged, then there would be a horrible state of things."

"For him who feels it there are horrible things, but for the one who does not feel it there is nothing horrible, or even important."

"But you are advocating an absolute immorality, Rakhmétof."

"Does it seem to you so, after living with him four years? In this respect he is to blame. How often do you dine every day? Once? Would anybody be offended if you