"'And you, why do you not share these convictions?'

"And through all this verbiage, all have but one single idea: 'Take me,
take my Lise. No, me! Only try!"'


CHAPTER IX.

"Do you know," suddenly continued Posdnicheff, "that this power of women
from which the world suffers arises solely from what I have just spoken
of?"

"What do you mean by the power of women?" I said. "Everybody, on the
contrary, complains that women have not sufficient rights, that they are
in subjection."

"That's it; that's it exactly," said he, vivaciously. "That is just what
I mean, and that is the explanation of this extraordinary phenomenon,
that on the one hand woman is reduced to the lowest degree of
humiliation and on the other hand she reigns over everything. See the
Jews: with their power of money, they avenge their subjection, just
as the women do. 'Ah! you wish us to be only merchants? All right;
remaining merchants, we will get possession of you,' say the Jews. 'Ah!
you wish us to be only objects of sensuality? All right; by the aid of
sensuality we will bend you beneath our yoke,' say the women.

"The absence of the rights of woman does not consist in the fact that
she has not the right to vote, or the right to sit on the bench, but in
the fact that in her affectional relations she is not the equal of man,
she has not the right to abstain, to choose instead of being chosen.