The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

t I have just spoken of?”“What do you mean by the power of women?” I said. “Everybody, on the contrary, complains that w

ly it is woman who chooses. As soon as she is in possession of her means, she abuses them, and acquires a terrible supremacy.”“But where do you see this exceptional power?”“Where? Why, everywhere, in everything. Go see the stores in the large cities. There are millions there, millions. It is impossible to estimate the enormous quantity of labor that is expended there. In nine-tenths of these stores is there anything whatever for the use of men? All the luxury of life is demanded and sustained by woman. Count the factories; the greater part of them are engaged in making feminine ornaments. Millions of men, generations of slaves, die toiling like convicts simply to satisfy the whims of our companions.“Women, like queens, keep nine-tenths of the human race as prisoners of war, or as prisoners at hard labor. And all this because they have been humiliated, because they have been deprived of rights equal to those which men enjoy. They take revenge for our sensuality; they catch us in their nets.“Yes, the whole thing is there. Women have made of themselves such a weapon to act upon the senses that a young man, and ev