Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

costumes which evoke sensuality are not forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!” X

“Well, you see, I was caught that way. I was what is called in love. I not only imagined her to be the height of perfection, but during the time of our engagement I regarded myself also as the height of perfection. You know there is no rascal who cannot, if he tries, find rascals in some respects worse than himself, and who consequently cannot find reasons for pride and self-satisfaction. So it was with me: I was not marrying for money⁠—covetousness had nothing to do with it⁠—unlike the majority of my acquaintances who married for money or connections⁠—I was rich, she was poor. That was one thing. Another thing I prided myself on was that while others married intending to continue in future the same polygamous life they had lived before marriage, I was firmly resolved to be monogamous after marriage, and there was no limit to my pride on that score. Yes, I was a dreadful pig and imagined myself to be an angel.

“Our engagement did not last long. I cannot now think of that time without shame! What nastiness! Love is supposed to be spiritual and not sensual. Well, if the love is spiritual, a spiritual communion, then that spiritual communion should find expression in words, in conversations, in discourse. There was nothing of the kind. It used to be dreadfully difficult to talk when we were left alone. It was the labour of Sisyphus. As soon as we thought of something to say and said it, we had again to be silent, devising something else. There was nothing to talk about. All that could be said about the life that awaited us, our arrangements and plans, had been said, and what was there more? Now if we had been animals we should have known that speech was unnecessary; but here on the contrary it was necessary to speak, and there was nothing to say, because we were not occupied with what finds vent in speech. And moreover there was that ridiculous custom of giving sweets, of coarse gormandizing on sweets, and all those abominable preparations for the wedding: remarks about the house, the bedroom, beds, wraps, dressing gowns, underclothing, costumes. You must remember that if one married according to the injunctions of Domostróy, as that old fellow was saying, then the feather beds, the trousseau, and the bedstead are all but details appropriate to the sacrament. But among us, when of ten who marry there are certainly nine who not only do not believe in the sacrament, but do not even believe that what they are doing entails certain obligations⁠—where scarcely one man out of a hundred has not been married before, and of fifty scarcely one is not preparing in advance to be unfaithful to his wife at every convenient opportunity⁠—when the majority regard the going to church as only a special condition for obtaining possession of a certain woman⁠—think what a dreadful significance all these details acquire. They show that the whole business is only that; they show that it is a kind of sale. An innocent girl is sold to a profligate, and the sale is accompanied by certain formalities.”

XI

“That is how everybody marries and that is how I married, and the much vaunted honeymoon began. Why, its very name is vile!” he hissed viciously. “In Paris I once went to see the sights, and noticing a bearded woman and a water-dog on a sign board, I entered the show. It turned out to be nothing but a man in a woman’s low-necked dress, and a dog done up in a walrus skin and swimming in a bath. It was very far from being interesting; but as I was leaving, the showman politely saw me out and, addressing the public at the entrance, pointed to me and said, ‘Ask the gentleman whether it is not worth seeing! Come in, come in, one franc apiece!’ I felt ashamed to say it was not worth seeing, and the showman had probably counted on that. It must be the same with those who have experienced the abomination of a honeymoon and who do not disillusion others. Neither did I disillusion anyone, but I do not now see why I should not tell the truth. Indeed, I think it needful to tell the truth about it. One felt awkward, ashamed, repelled, sorry, and above all dull, intolerably dull! It was something like what I felt when I learned to smoke⁠—when I felt sick and the saliva gathered in my mouth and I swallowed it and pretended that it was very pleasant. Pleasure from smoking, just as from that, if it comes at all, comes later. The husband must cultivate that vice in his wife in order to derive pleasure from it.”

“Why vice?” I said. “You are speaking of the most natural human functions.”

“Natural?” he said. “Natural? No, I may tell you that I have come to the conclusion that it is, on the contrary, unnatural. Yes, quite unnatural. As a child, as an unperverted girl.

“Natural, you say!

“It is natural to eat. And to eat is, from the very beginning enjoyable, easy, pleasant, and not shameful; but this is horrid, shameful, and painful. No, it is unnatural! And an unspoiled girl, as I have convinced myself, always hates it.”

“But how,” I asked, “would the human race continue?”

“Yes, would not the human race perish?” he said, irritably and ironically, as if he had expected this familiar and insincere objection. “Teach abstention from childbearing so that English lords may always gorge themselves⁠—that is all right. Preach it for the sake of greater pleasure⁠—that is all right; but just hint at abstention from childbearing in the name of morality⁠—and, my goodness, what a rumpus⁠ ⁠… ! Isn’t there a danger that the human race may die out because they want to cease to be swine? But forgive me! This