Chapter Chapter 4 · Chapter IV

. Chapter IV

“Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful

history,—yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than

the outcome.”

He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and

began:—

“To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning.

It must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my

marriage. First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman

of the steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University

pupil, a graduate of the law school. I married in my thirtieth year.

But before talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived

formerly, and what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so

many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And

like the majority, while leading the life of a _débauché_, I was

convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.

“The idea that I had of my morality arose from the fact that in my

family there was no knowledge of those special debaucheries, so common

in the surroundings of land-owners, and also from the fact that my

father and my mother did not deceive each other. In consequence of

this, I had built from childhood a dream of high and poetical conjugal

life. My wife was to be perfection itself, our mutual love was to be

incomparable, the purity of our conjugal life stainless. I thought

thus, and all the time I marvelled at the nobility of my projects.

“At the same time, I passed ten years of my adult life without hurrying

toward marriage, and I led what I called the well-regulated and

reasonable life of a bachelor. I was proud of it before my friends, and

before all men of my age who abandoned themselves to all sorts of

special refinements. I was not a seducer, I had no unnatural tastes, I

did not make debauchery the principal object of my life; but I found

pleasure within the limits of society’s rules, and innocently believed

myself a profoundly moral being. The women with whom I had relations

did not belong to me alone, and I asked of them nothing but the

pleasure of the moment.

“In all this I saw nothing abnormal. On the contrary, from the fact

that I did not engage my heart, but paid in cash, I supposed that I was

honest. I avoided those women who, by attaching themselves to me, or

presenting me with a child, could bind my future. Moreover, perhaps

there may have been children or attachments; but I so arranged matters

that I could not become aware of them.

“And living thus, I considered myself a perfectly honest man. I did not

understand that debauchery does not consist simply in physical acts,

that no matter what physical ignominy does not yet constitute

debauchery, and that real debauchery consists in freedom from the moral

bonds toward a woman with whom one enters into carnal relations, and I

regarded _this freedom_ as a merit. I remember that I once tortured

myself exceedingly for having forgotten to pay a woman who probably had

given herself to me through love. I only became tranquil again when,

having sent her the money, I had thus shown her that I did not consider

myself as in any way bound to her. Oh, do not shake your head as if you

were in agreement with me (he cried suddenly with vehemence). I know

these tricks. All of you, and you especially, if you are not a rare

exception, have the same ideas that I had then. If you are in agreement

with me, it is now only. Formerly you did not think so. No more did I;

and, if I had been told what I have just told you, that which has

happened would not have happened. However, it is all the same. Excuse

me (he continued): the truth is that it is frightful, frightful,

frightful, this abyss of errors and debaucheries in which we live face

to face with the real question of the rights of woman.” . . .

“What do you mean by the ‘real’ question of the rights of woman?”

“The question of the nature of this special being, organized otherwise

than man, and how this being and man ought to view the wife. . . .”