The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories


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I conceive that they desire, like the lawyers and the rest, to make  
money. I would willingly have given them half of my income--and any one  
would have done it in my place, understanding what they do--if they had  
consented not to meddle in my conjugal life, and to keep themselves at a  
distance. I have compiled no statistics, but I know scores of cases--in  
reality, they are innumerable--where they have killed, now a child in  
its mother's womb, asserting positively that the mother could not give  
birth to it (when the mother could give birth to it very well), now  
mothers, under the pretext of a so-called operation. No one has counted  
these murders, just as no one counted the murders of the Inquisition,  
because it was supposed that they were committed for the benefit of  
humanity. Innumerable are the crimes of the doctors! But all these  
crimes are nothing compared with the materialistic demoralization which  
they introduce into the world through women. I say nothing of the fact  
that, if it were to follow their advice,--thanks to the microbe which  
they see everywhere,--humanity, instead of tending to union, would  
proceed straight to complete disunion. Everybody, according to their  
doctrine, should isolate himself, and never remove from his mouth a  
syringe filled with phenic acid (moreover, they have found out now that  
it does no good). But I would pass over all these things. The supreme  
poison is the perversion of people, especially of women. One can no  
longer say now: 'You live badly, live better.' One can no longer say  
it either to himself or to others, for, if you live badly (say the  
doctors), the cause is in the nervous system or in something similar,  
and it is necessary to go to consult them, and they will prescribe  
for you thirty-five copecks' worth of remedies to be bought at the  
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73 74 75 76 77

Quick Jump
1 73 145 218 290