Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/355



, everything seemed to be favourable: my condition, the well-made garment, and the successful rowing. It had been a failure some twenty times, but this once everything went well, as happens with a trap. I am not laughing. Marriages are now arranged like traps. Is there anything natural about it? A girl is grown up,—she must be married. This seems so simple, when the girl is not a monster, and there are men who want to get married. Thus it was done in ancient times. When the girl became of the proper age, her parents arranged the match for her. Thus it was done, and still is done, with the whole human race: among the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Mohammedans, and among our lower classes; thus it is done with the whole human race, at least with ninety-nine hundredths of it. Only one hundredth, and even less, of us debauchees have discovered that this is not good, and something new has been concocted. What is this new thing? It is this: the girls sit, and the men, as at a fair, walk up and down, and make their selection. The girls sit and think, not daring to say it: 'Darling, take me!—No, me!—Not her, but me; see what shoulders, etc., I have!' But we men keep walking up and down, scrutinizing, and feeling quite satisfied. 'I know, but I will not be caught.' They walk about, and scrutinize, and are quite satisfied, seeing that it is all fixed that way to please them. If one is not on the lookout,—bang, and he is caught!"

"How would you have it otherwise?" I said. "Would you want a woman to propose?"