| 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 |
| 1 | 73 | 145 | 218 | 290 |
|
diphtheria, destroy everything in their residences, and then fall sick
in houses newly built and furnished. Every one knows, likewise, numbers
of men who come in contact with sick people and do not get infected. Our
anxieties are due to the people who circulate tall stories. One woman
says that she has an excellent doctor. 'Pardon me,' answers the other,
'
he killed such a one,' or such a one. And vice versa. Bring her
another, who knows no more, who learned from the same books, who treats
according to the same formulas, but who goes about in a carriage, and
asks a hundred roubles a visit, and she will have faith in him.
"
It all lies in the fact that our women are savages. They have no belief
in God, but some of them believe in the evil eye, and the others in
doctors who charge high fees. If they had faith they would know that
scarlatina, diphtheria, etc., are not so terrible, since they cannot
disturb that which man can and should love,--the soul. There can result
from them only that which none of us can avoid,--disease and death.
Without faith in God, they love only physically, and all their energy is
concentrated upon the preservation of life, which cannot be preserved,
and which the doctors promise the fools of both sexes to save. And from
that time there is nothing to be done; the doctors must be summoned.
"
Thus the presence of the children not only did not improve our
relations as husband and wife, but, on the contrary, disunited us. The
children became an additional cause of dispute, and the larger they
grew, the more they became an instrument of struggle.
8
3
Page
Quick Jump
|