the others. He bent over with crooked knees, staggering like a man
carrying a heavy load on his back. His veins swelled, and he panted
with fury:

"That's the way women are once for all, are they? Since when, eh? Have
you never heard of the suffragettes who boxed the ears of prime
ministers, and set fire to museums, and let themselves be chained to
lamp-posts for the sake of the vote? For the sake of the vote, do you
hear? But for the sake of their men? No. Not one sound. Not one single
outcry!"

He stopped to take breath, overcome by a wild suffocating despair. Then
he pulled himself together once more and with difficulty suppressing the
sobs, which kept bringing a lump into his throat, he screamed in deepest
misery like a hunted animal:

"Have you heard of one woman throwing herself in front of a train for
the sake of her husband? Has a single one of them boxed the ears of a
prime minister or tied herself to a railroad track for us? There wasn't
one that had to be torn away. Not one fought for us or defended us. Not
one moved a little finger for us in the whole wide world! They drove us
out! They gagged us! They gave us the spur, like poor Dill. They sent us
to murder, they sent us to die--for their vanity. Are you going to
defend them? No! They must be pulled out! Pulled out like weeds, by the
roots! Four of you together must pull the way we had to do with Dill.
Four of you together! Then she'll have to come out. Are you the doctor?
There! Do it to my head. I don't want a wife! Pull--pull her out!"

He flung out his arm and his fist came down like a hammer on his own
skull, and his crooked fingers clutched pitilessly at the sparse growth