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Rh think not about yourself, but about me. It is your truthfulness; we are to be pitied, we are deceived, we are lead blindfolded, so as to be more easily deceived. But don't fear on my account; you cannot deceive me. My happiness is sure. Just as you are tranquil on your part, so am I on mine.

"I wonder at one thing," continued Beaumont on the following day. Again they were walking through the rooms, and Pólozof was sitting in one of them. "I wonder at one thing—that there are any happy marriages under such conditions."

"You speak in a tone as though you were sorry that there were such things as happy marriages," replied Katerina Vasílyevna laughingly. She now, as may have been observed, laughs frequently in a tranquil and joyous way.

"And in fact they generally do inspire gloomy thoughts: if with such scanty means of judging the necessities and characters of men, girls very often succeed in making satisfactory choices, what a brightness and soundness of wit it shows that women possess! What a true, strong, vigilant mind nature has gifted them withal! And this mind remains without advantage for society, society dismisses it, oppresses it, chokes it, and the history of mankind would have advanced tenfold quicker if this intellect had not been dismissed, oppressed, and killed."

"You are the panegyrist of women, Mr. Beaumont! Is there no way of explaining it in a simpler way, by opportunity?"

"By opportunity? Explain it by opportunity if you want to; but when the opportunities are numerous, you know that besides chance which originates one part of them, there must be another cause originating the other part. It is impossible to suppose any other general cause, beyond my explanation—soundness of choice arising from the strength and vigilance of mind."

"You are quite like Mrs. Beecher Stowe, on the woman question, Mr. Beaumont. She proves that the negroes are the most talented of all the races, that they stand above the white race by their intellect."

"You are joking, but I am serious."

"It seems that you are provoked at me because I don't bow before a woman. But accept as my excuse at least the difficulty of getting on my knees before myself."