Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/347



, that is so. Then it went farther, and farther, and there were all kinds of deviations. O God! I am horrified when I think of all my villainies. This is the way I think of myself, whom my companions ridiculed for my so-called innocence. But when you hear of the golden youths, of the officers, of the Parisians! And all these gentlemen, and I, whenever we, thirty-year-old debauchees, who have upon our souls hundreds of the most varied and terrible crimes in regard to women, when we, thirty-year-old debauchees, cleanly washed, shaven, perfumed, in clean linen, in evening dress or uniform, enter a drawing-room or appear at a ball,—we are emblems of purity, charming!

"Consider what it ought to be and what it is! It ought to be that if, in society, such a gentleman comes up to my sister or daughter, I, knowing his life, ought to walk over to him, to call him aside, and quietly to say to him: 'Dear sir, I know the kind of a life you lead and with whom you pass your nights. This is not the place for you. Here are pure, innocent girls. Go away!' Thus it ought to be; whereas, in reality, when such a gentleman makes his appearance and dances with my sister or daughter, and embraces her, we rejoice, if he happens to be rich and has influential connections. Maybe he will honour my daughter after Rigolboge! Even if traces of the disease are left,—that does not matter much,—nowadays they cure well. Really, I know several girls of high life who have with delight been