Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/374



like just such a swine," he continued, in his former tone of voice. "The worst of it was that, living this bad life, I imagined that, because I was not attracted to other women, because I was living an honest domestic life, I was a moral man, and that I was not guilty of anything, but that our quarrels were due to her, her character.

"Of course, it was not she alone who was at fault. She was such as all, or as the majority are. She had been educated as the position of woman in our society demands, and as are brought up all the women, without exception, of our privileged classes, and as they of necessity must be brought up. They are prating of a new education for women. Empty words: the education of woman is just what it ought to be considering the existing unfeigned, true, general view held in regard to woman.

"The education of woman will always correspond to man's view of her. We all know what men think of them: '', and poets say so in verse. Take all poetry, all painting and sculpture, beginning with amatory poems and naked Venuses and Phrynes, and you will see that woman is an instrument of enjoyment; so she is on the Trubá and on the Grachévka, and at the most refined ball. Take note of the devil's cunning: all right, let it be enjoyment and pleasure, let it, then, be known that it is enjoyment, and that woman is a dainty morsel. No, at first the knights assure us that they will worship woman (that they will, but they