The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Kreutzer Sonata/Chapter 9
IX.
"Do you know," he began, putting the tea and sugar in a bag, "it is the domination of women from which the world suffers. All this comes from it.
"How do you mean the domination of women?" I said. "The rights, the privileges, are on the side of men."
"Precisely," he interrupted me. "It is exactly what I wanted to tell you. It explains that unusual phenomenon that, on the one hand, it is quite true that woman has been brought to the lowest degree of humiliation, while, on the other, she dominates. The women dominate in the same way that the Jews, with their monetary power, pay us back for their oppression. 'Ah, you want us to be traders only,—very well, we Jews will take possession of you,' say the Jews. 'Ah, you want us to be nothing but objects of sensuality,—very well, we, as objects of sensuality, will enslave you,' say the women. Woman is deprived of rights not because she cannot vote or be a judge,—there is no special privilege in being occupied with these affairs,—but because in sexual intercourse she is not man's equal, has not the right to use a man or abstain from him according to her wish, to select a man according to her wish, instead of being selected. You say this is abominable,—very well: then let men be deprived of the same rights. At the present time woman is deprived of the right which man enjoys. So, in order to avenge herself on him for this right, she acts on man's sensuality, through this sensuality subdues him so that he selects only formally, for in reality it is she who makes the selection. Having once possessed herself of this means, she misuses it, and gains a terrible power over men."
"Wherein does this special power lie?" I asked.
"Where does it lie? Everywhere, in everything. Go through the shops in any large city! Millions of roubles' worth of goods are displayed here,—it is hard to estimate the labour expended on them,—and see whether in nine-tenths of these shops there is anything for the use of men. The whole luxury of life is demanded and supported by women.
"Count all the factories. An immense proportion of them make useless adornments, carriages, furniture, baubles for women. Millions of people, whole generations of slaves, perish in this forced labour of the factories, merely to satisfy this craving of the women. The women, like queens, keep in bondage and at hard labour nine-tenths of the human race. All this comes from having humiliated them and deprived them of equal rights with men. So they avenge themselves by acting on our sensuality, and by catching us in their nets. Yes, that is what it comes from.
"Women have made of themselves such a weapon of sensual incitement that a man is not able to treat a woman calmly. The moment a man walks over to a woman he comes under the influence of her poison, and becomes intoxicated. In former days I never felt at ease when I saw a woman all dressed up in her evening attire, but now I simply feel terribly, I cannot help seeing something dangerous for men and illicit, and I feel like calling a policeman and asking protection against a peril, and demanding that the dangerous object be taken away and removed.
"Yes, you laugh!" he cried to me, "but it is not at all a joke. I am sure that the time will come, and maybe very soon, when people will understand it and will wonder how society could exist where, in violation of the social peace, such deeds could be permitted as are the wearing of those bodily ornaments which directly provoke sensuality, and which society tolerates in the case of women. Is not this the same as putting traps on all walks and paths? No, it is worse! Why is gambling forbidden, and why are women permitted to appear in garbs which provoke sensuality? They are a thousand times more dangerous.