Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/333

 connection between education and marital incompatibility," the lawyer said, with a slight smile.

The merchant wanted to say something, but the lady interrupted him:

"No, that time has passed," she said. But the lawyer stopped her:

"Permit the gentleman to express his idea!"

"Foolishness comes from education," the old man said, with determination.

"They join in marriage those who do not love each other, and then they wonder why it is they do not live in peace," the lady hastened to say, looking at the lawyer and at me, and even at the clerk, who had raised himself in his seat and, leaning on the hand-rest, was listening to the conversation. "Only animals may be paired according to their master's will, but people have their inclinations and attachments," said the lady, evidently wishing to sting the merchant.

"Madam, you say this in vain," said the old man. "An animal is a beast, but law is given to man."

"But how can you want one to live with a person, when there is no love between them?" the lady still hastened to express her sentiments, which, no doubt, seemed very novel to her.

"In former days this was not considered," the old man said, in an impressive voice. "This has only come in lately. Let the least thing happen, and the wife says: 'I will leave you!' Even peasants have taken to it. 'Here,' she says, 'are your shirt and trousers, but I will go with Vánka, because his hair is more curly than yours.' Go and talk with them! Woman must, above everything else, have fear."

The clerk glanced at the lawyer, and at the lady, and at me, apparently holding back a smile, and ready to approve or ridicule the merchant's speech, according to the way it was accepted.