TOLSTOY

THE KREUTZER SONATA – TOLSTOY

‘Ah, you want us to be merely objects of sensuality – all right, as objects of sensuality we will enslave you,’ say the women … And to make up for the right she acts on man’s sensuality, and through his sensuality subdues him so that he only chooses formally, while in reality it is she who chores. And once she has obtained these means she abuses them and acquires a terrible power over people.’

‘But where is this special power?’ I inquired.

‘Where is it? Why everywhere in everything! Go round the shops in any Big town. There are goods worth millions and you cannot estimate the human labours expended on them, and look whether in nine-tenth of their shops there is anything for the use of men. All the luxuries of life are demanded and maintained by women.

‘Count all the factories. An enormous proportion of them produced are useless ornaments, carriages, furniture and trinkets for women. Millions of people, generations of slaves perished at the hard labours in factories merely to satisfy woman’s caprice. Women, like queens kept nine-tenth of mankind in bondage to heavy labour. And all because they have been abased and deprived of equal rights with men. And they revenge themselves by acting on our sensuality and catch us in their nets. Yes, it all comes of that.

A hen is not afraid of what may happen to her chick, does not know all the diseases that may befall it, and does not know all those remedies with which people imagine that they can save from illness and death. And for hen her young are not a source of torment. She does for them what it is natural and pleasurable for her to do; her young ones are a pleasure to her. When a chick falls ill her duties are quite different: she warms and feeds it. And doing all that is necessary. If her chick dies she does not ask herself why it died, or where it has gone to; she cackles for a while and then leaves off and goes on living as before.

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