"I do not know. But, if it is a question of equality, let the equality

be complete. Though it has been found that to contract marriages through

the agency of match-makers is humiliating, it is nevertheless a thousand

times preferable to our system. There the rights and the chances are

equal; here the woman is a slave, exhibited in the market. But as she

cannot bend to her condition, or make advances herself, there begins

that other and more abominable lie which is sometimes called GOING INTO

SOCIETY, sometimes AMUSING ONE'S SELF, and which is really nothing but

the hunt for a husband.

"But say to a mother or to her daughter that they are engaged only in a

hunt for a husband. God! What an offence! Yet they can do nothing else,

and have nothing else to do; and the terrible feature of it all is to

see sometimes very young, poor, and innocent maidens haunted solely by

such ideas. If only, I repeat, it were done frankly; but it is always

accompanied with lies and babble of this sort:--

'Ah, the descent of species! How interesting it is!'

'Oh, Lily is much interested in painting.'

'Shall you go to the Exposition? How charming it is!'

'And the troika, and the plays, and the symphony. Ah, how adorable!'

'My Lise is passionately fond of music.'

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories