“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, distinguons. In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!”
“I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.”
Lebeziatnikov was enraged.
“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest. … All I wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!”
“Have you asked her to join your community?”
“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you. You don’t understand! There is no such role in a community. The community is established that there should be no such roles. In a community, such a role is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”
“And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!”
“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”
“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!”
“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!”
“And you, of course, are developing her … he-he! trying to prove to her that all that modesty is nonsense?”
“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly—excuse me saying so—you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how … crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have only one idea in your head. … Setting aside the general question of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more respect for her dignity … I wait in hopes, that’s all!”
“You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never thought of that.”
“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in protesting—which she has already shown once—she has little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question of coming into the room in the future society.”
“And what’s that, pray?”
“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any time … and we decided that he has!”
“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”
Lebeziatnikov was really angry.
“You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more useful.”
“And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!”
“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’— all those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is of use to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: useful! You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”
