"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.