"If it had not been for the distinctive property of anti-nihilistic influence on the side of classical studies, we should have considered the subject more, have weighed the arguments on both sides," said Sergey Ivanovitch with a subtle smile, "we should have given elbow-room to both tendencies.
But now we know that these little pills of classical learning possess the medicinal property of anti-nihilism, and we boldly prescribe them to our patients....
But what if they had no such medicinal property?" he wound up humorously.
At Sergey Ivanovitch's little pills, everyone laughed; Turovtsin in especial roared loudly and jovially, glad at last to have found something to laugh at, all he ever looked for in listening to conversation.
Stepan Arkadyevitch had not made a mistake in inviting Pestsov.
With Pestsov intellectual conversation never flagged for an instant.
Directly Sergey Ivanovitch had concluded the conversation with his jest, Pestsov promptly started a new one.
"I can't agree even," said he, "that the government had that aim.
The government obviously is guided by abstract considerations, and remains indifferent to the influence its measures may exercise.
The education of women, for instance, would naturally be regarded as likely to be harmful, but the government opens schools and universities for women."
And the conversation at once passed to the new subject of the education of women.
Alexey Alexandrovitch expressed the idea that the education of women is apt to be confounded with the emancipation of women, and that it is only so that it can be considered dangerous.
"I consider, on the contrary, that the two questions are inseparably connected together," said Pestsov; "it is a vicious circle.
Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights.
We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognize the gulf that separates them from us," said he.
"You said rights," said Sergey Ivanovitch, waiting till Pestsov had finished, "meaning the right of sitting on juries, of voting, of presiding at official meetings, the right of entering the civil service, of sitting in parliament..."
"Undoubtedly."
"But if women, as a rare exception, can occupy such positions, it seems to me you are wrong in using the expression 'rights.'
It would be more correct to say duties.
Every man will agree that in doing the duty of a juryman, a witness, a telegraph clerk, we feel we are performing duties.
And therefore it would be correct to say that women are seeking duties, and quite legitimately.
And one can but sympathize with this desire to assist in the general labor of man."
"Quite so," Alexey Alexandrovitch assented. "The question, I imagine, is simply whether they are fitted for such duties."
"They will most likely be perfectly fitted," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "when education has become general among them.
We see this..."
"How about the proverb?" said the prince, who had a long while been intent on the conversation, his little comical eyes twinkling. "I can say it before my daughter: her hair is long, because her wit is..."
"Just what they thought of the negroes before their emancipation!" said Pestsov angrily.
"What seems strange to me is that women should seek fresh duties," said Sergey Ivanovitch, "while we see, unhappily, that men usually try to avoid them."
"Duties are bound up with rights--power, money, honor; those are what women are seeking," said Pestsov.
"Just as though I should seek the right to be a wet-nurse and feel injured because women are paid for the work, while no one will take me," said the old prince.
Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter and Sergey Ivanovitch regretted that he had not made this comparison.
Even Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled.
"Yes, but a man can't nurse a baby," said Pestsov, "while a woman..."
"No, there was an Englishman who did suckle his baby on board ship," said the old prince, feeling this freedom in conversation permissible before his own daughters.
"There are as many such Englishmen as there would be women officials," said Sergey Ivanovitch.
"Yes, but what is a girl to do who has no family?" put in Stepan Arkadyevitch, thinking of Masha Tchibisova, whom he had had in his mind all along, in sympathizing with Pestsov and supporting him.
"If the story of such a girl were thoroughly sifted, you would find she had abandoned a family--her own or a sister's, where she might have found a woman's duties," Darya Alexandrovna broke in unexpectedly in a tone of exasperation, probably suspecting what sort of girl Stepan Arkadyevitch was thinking of.
"But we take our stand on principle as the ideal," replied Pestsov in his mellow bass. "Woman desires to have rights, to be independent, educated.
She is oppressed, humiliated by the consciousness of her disabilities."
"And I'm oppressed and humiliated that they won't engage me at the Foundling," the old prince said again, to the huge delight of Turovtsin, who in his mirth dropped his asparagus with the thick end in the sauce.
Chapter 11
Everyone took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin.
At first, when they were talking of the influence that one people has on another, there rose to Levin's mind what he had to say on the subject. But these ideas, once of such importance in his eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now not the slightest interest for him.
It even struck him as strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was of no use to anyone.
Kitty, too, should, one would have supposed, have been interested in what they were saying of the rights and education of women.
How often she had mused on the subject, thinking of her friend abroad, Varenka, of her painful state of dependence, how often she had wondered about herself what would become of her if she did not marry, and how often she had argued with her sister about it!
But it did not interest her at all.
She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering.
At first Levin, in answer to Kitty's question how he could have seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been coming home from the mowing along the highroad and had met her.
"It was very, very early in the morning.