The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
page 49 of 232 (21%)
page 49 of 232 (21%)
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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 revolvers, 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 follow 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 enjoyment 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 humanity? Woman. Why is it so? "For the reason that I have given, and for that reason only." CHAPTER XIV. "Yes, much worse than the animal is man when he does not live as a man. Thus was I. The horrible part is that I believed, inasmuch as I did not allow myself to be seduced by other women that I was leading an honest family life, that I was a very mortal being, and that if we had quarrels, the fault was in my wife, and in her character. "But it is evident that the fault was not in her. She was like everybody else, like the majority. She was brought up according to the principles exacted by the situation of our society,--that is, as all the young girls of our wealthy classes, without exception, are brought up, and as they cannot fail to be brought up. How many times we hear or read |
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