Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/351



, after all, it is better this way, it is better!" he exclaimed. "It served me right! But this is another matter. I wanted to say that the only ones who are deceived are these unfortunate maidens.

"The mothers know it, especially the mothers who have been educated by their husbands know it well. Pretending to believe in the purity of men, they, in fact, act quite differently. They know with what line to catch men for themselves and for their daughters.

"We men do not know it, and we do not know it because we do not want to know it, but the women know very well that the most elevated, the poetical love, as we call it, depends not on moral qualities, but on physical nearness, and besides on the dressing of the hair, and the colour and cut of the dress. Ask an expert coquette, who has undertaken to entice a certain man, what she would prefer to risk to be accused, in presence of him whom she is endeavouring to charm, of lying, cruelty, and even debauchery, or to appear before him in a badly made and homely dress,—and you will find that she will always prefer the first. She knows that we men are ranting about high sentiments, but that we mean only her body, and that we, therefore, will forgive her all her nastiness, but that we will not forgive an ugly, inartistic, tasteless costume.

"The coquette knows this consciously, and every innocent girl knows it unconsciously, just as animals know it.

"This accounts for those nasty jerseys, bustles, these bare shoulders, arms, and almost breasts. Women, espe-