University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

"ALL of us, men and women, are brought up
in these aberrations of feeling that we call love.

I from childhood had prepared myself for this
thing, and I loved, and I loved during all my
youth, and I was joyous in loving. It had been
put into my head that it was the noblest and
highest occupation in the world. But when this
expected feeling came at last, and I, a man,
abandoned myself to it, the lie was pierced
through and through. Theoretically a lofty love
is conceivable; practically it is an ignoble and
degrading thing, which it is equally disgusting
to talk about and to remember. It is not in vain
that nature has made ceremonies, but people pre-
tend that the ignoble and the shameful is beauti-
ful and lofty.

"I will tell you brutally and briefly what were
the first signs of my love. I abandoned myself
to beastly excesses, not only not ashamed of
them, but proud of them, giving no thought to
the intellectual life of my wife. And not only
did I not think of her intellectual life, I did not

even consider her physical life. I was aston-
ished at the origin of our hostility, and yet how
clear it was! This hostility is nothing but a
protest of human nature against the beast that
enslaves it. It could not be otherwise. This
hatred was the hatred of accomplices in a crime.

Was it not a crime that, this poor woman having
become pregnant in the first month, our
liaison should have continued just the same?

"You imagine that I am wandering from my
story. Not at all. I am always giving you an
account of the events that led to the murder of
my wife. The imbeciles! They think that I
killed my wife on the 5th of October. It was
long before that that I immolated her, just as
they all kill now. Understand well that in our
society there is an idea shared by all that woman
procures man pleasure (and
vice versa
, proba-
bly, but I know nothing of that, I only know my
own case).
Wein, Weiber und Gesang.
So say
the poets in their verses: Wine, women, and
song!

"If it were only that! Take all the poetry, the
painting, the sculpture, beginning with Pousch-
kine's 'Little Feet,' with 'Venus and Phryne,'

and you will see that woman is only a means of
enjoyment. That is what she is at Trouba, * at
Gratchevka, and in a court ball-room. And
think of this diabolical trick: if she were a thing
without moral value, it might be said that wom-
an is a fine morsel; but, in the first place, these
knights assure us that they adore woman (they
adore her and look upon her, however, as a
means of enjoyment), then all assure us that
they esteem woman. Some give up their seats
to her, pick up her handkerchief; others recog-
nize in her a right to fill all offices, participate in
government, etc., but, in spite of all that, the
essential point remains the same. She is, she re-
mains, an object of sensual desire, and she
knows it. It is slavery, for slavery is nothing
else than the utilization of the labor of some for
the enjoyment of others. That slavery may not
exist people must refuse to enjoy the labor of
others, and look upon it as a shameful act and
as a sin.

"Actually, this is what happens. They abol-
ish the external form, they suppress the formal

sales of slaves, and then they imagine and as-
sure others that slavery is abolished. They are
unwilling to see that it still exists, since people,
as before, like to profit by the labor of others,
and think it good and just. This being given,
there will always be found beings stronger or
more cunning than others to profit thereby. The
same thing happens in the emancipation of
woman. At bottom feminine servitude consists
entirely in her assimilation with a means of
pleasure. They excite woman, they give her all
sorts of rights equal to those of men, but they
continue to look upon her as an object of sensual
desire, and thus they bring her up from infancy
and in public opinion.

"She is always the humiliated and corrupt
serf, and man remains always the debauched
Master. Yes, to abolish slavery, public opinion
must admit that it is shameful to exploit one's
neighbor, and, to make woman free, public opin-
ion must admit that it is shameful to consider
woman as an instrument of pleasure.

"The emancipation of woman is not to be
effected in the public courts or in the chamber
of deputies, but in the sleeping chamber. Pros-

titution is to be combated, not in the houses of
ill-fame, but in the family. They free woman in
the public courts and in the chamber of deputies,
but she remains an instrument. Teach her, as
she is taught among us, to look upon herself as
such, and she will always remain an inferior
being. Either, with the aid of the rascally doc-
tors, she will try to prevent conception, and
descend, not to the level of an animal, but to
the level of a thing; or she will be what she is
in the great majority of cases,—sick, hysterical,
wretched, without hope of spiritual prog-
ress." . . .

"But why that?" I asked.

"Oh! the most astonishing thing is that no
one is willing to see this thing, evident as it is,
which the doctors must understand, but which
they take good care not to do. Man does not
wish to know the law of nature,—children. But
children are born and become an embarrassment.

Then man devises means of avoiding this em-
barrassment. We have not yet reached the low
level of Europe, nor Paris, nor the 'system of
two children,' nor Mahomet. We have discov-
ered nothing, because we have given it no

thought. We feel that there is something bad
in the two first means; but we wish to preserve
the family, and our view of woman is still worse.

"With us woman must be at the same time
mistress and nurse, and her strength is not suf-
ficient. That is why we have hysteria, nervous
attacks, and, among the peasants, witchcraft.

Note that among the young girls of the peasan-
try this state of things does not exist, but only
among the wives, and the wives who live with
their husbands. The reason is clear, and this is
the cause of the intellectual and moral decline
of woman, and of her abasement.

"If they would only reflect what a grand work
for the wife is the period of gestation! In her is
forming the being who continues us, and this
holy work is thwarted and rendered painful . . .
by what? It is frightful to think of it! And
after that they talk of the liberties and the
rights of woman! It is like the cannibals fatten-
ing their prisoners in order to devour them, and
assuring these unfortunates at the same time
that their rights and their liberties are guarded!"

All this was new to me, and astonished me
very much.

"But if this is so," said I, "it follows that one
may love his wife only once every two years;
and as man" . . .

"And as man has need of her, you are going
to say. At least, so the priests of science assure
us. I would force these priests to fulfil the
function of these women, who, in their opinion,
are necessary to man. I wonder what song they
would sing then. Assure man that he needs
brandy, tobacco, opium, and he will believe those
poisons necessary. It follows that God did not
know how to arrange matters properly, since,
without asking the opinions of the priests, he
has combined things as they are. Man needs,
so they have decided, to satisfy his sensual de-
sire, and here this function is disturbed by the
birth and the nursing of children.

"What, then, is to be done? Why, apply to
the priests; they will arrange everything, and
they have really discovered a way. When, then,
will these rascals with their lies be uncrowned!

It is high time. We have had enough of them.

People go mad, and shoot each other with re-
volvers, and always because of that! And how
could it be otherwise?

"One would say that the animals know that
descent continues their race, and that they fol-
low a certain law in regard thereto. Only man
does not know this, and is unwilling to know it.

He cares only to have as much sensual enjoy-
ment as possible. The king of nature,—man!

In the name of his love he kills half the human
race. Of woman, who ought to be his aid in the
movement of humanity toward liberty, he
makes, in the name of his pleasures, not an aid,
but an enemy. Who is it that everywhere puts
a check upon the progressive movement of hu-
manity? Woman. Why is it so? For the rea-
son that I have given, and for that reason only.