The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Kreutzer Sonata/Chapter 8
VIII.
Well, everything seemed to be favourable: my condition, the well-made garment, and the successful rowing. It had been a failure some twenty times, but this once everything went well, as happens with a trap. I am not laughing. Marriages are now arranged like traps. Is there anything natural about it? A girl is grown up,—she must be married. This seems so simple, when the girl is not a monster, and there are men who want to get married. Thus it was done in ancient times. When the girl became of the proper age, her parents arranged the match for her. Thus it was done, and still is done, with the whole human race: among the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Mohammedans, and among our lower classes; thus it is done with the whole human race, at least with ninety-nine hundredths of it. Only one hundredth, and even less, of us debauchees have discovered that this is not good, and something new has been concocted. What is this new thing? It is this: the girls sit, and the men, as at a fair, walk up and down, and make their selection. The girls sit and think, not daring to say it: 'Darling, take me!—No, me!—Not her, but me; see what shoulders, etc., I have!' But we men keep walking up and down, scrutinizing, and feeling quite satisfied. 'I know, but I will not be caught.' They walk about, and scrutinize, and are quite satisfied, seeing that it is all fixed that way to please them. If one is not on the lookout,—bang, and he is caught!"
"How would you have it otherwise?" I said. "Would you want a woman to propose?"
"I do not know what I want; only, if there is to be equality, let there be equality. If it has been discovered that match-making is degrading, this is a thousand times worse. There the rights and chances are equal, but here a woman is either a slave in the market, or a bait in a trap. Just try and tell a mother or the girl herself the truth that all that she is concerned in is to catch a husband, my God, what a storm you would raise! But this is all they are doing, and they have nothing else to do. What is terrible is to see at times extremely young, poor, innocent girls busy themselves with it. Then again, if it were done openly, but no, deception is practised.—'Ah, the origin of species, how interesting that is! Ah, Lili is interested in painting! Shall you be at the exposition? How instructive! And sleigh-riding, and the theatre, and the symphony? Ah, how remarkable! My Lili goes into ecstasies over music. Why do you not share her convictions? And rowing?'—But the only thought which occupies them is: Take me, take me, my Lili! No, me! Well, just try!'—Oh, what an abomination, what a lie!" he concluded, and, finishing what there was left of the tea, he began to clear away the cups and the dishes.