“Enough, Messieurs—we each have our opinions and we are not likely to change them,” he said, with dignity.
The first statement was approved, but Monsieur Rade, always in revolt, was determined to have the last word.
“I have a moral principle, nevertheless,” said he. It may be formulated in a phrase: ‘Never do anything to another, which you would not have him do to you.’ I defy you to find fault with that, while in three discussions I will undertake to demolish the most sacred of your principles.”
This time nobody answered. But as they were going home in the evening, two by two, each man said to his companion: “Truly, Monsieur Rade goes much too far. His head certainly is affected. He ought to be appointed chief of the Charenton Asylum!”
X
A Public Meeting
At each side of a door, above which, in staring letters, appeared the word “Ball,” large posters of a flaring red announced that on this Sunday this place of popular amusement would be devoted to another purpose.
Monsieur Patissot, sauntering about like a good bourgeois while digesting his dinner, and strolling leisurely toward the station, stopped, his attention being attracted by this bit of scarlet color, and he read as follows:
General International Association for the Vindication of the Rights of Women. Central Committee sitting at Paris.
Great Public Meeting.
Under the presidency of the freethinking citizeness, Zoé Lamour, and of the Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine, with the assistance of a delegation of citizenesses of the free circle of Independent Thought, and of a group of citizen adherents, Citizeness Césarine Brau and Citizen Sapience Cornut, returned from exile, will speak.
Price of admission, one franc.
An old woman wearing spectacles, seated at a table covered with a cloth, took the money.
Monsieur Patissot entered.
In the hall, already nearly full, floated an odor like that of a wet dog, mingled with the suspicious perfumes of public balls.
Monsieur Patissot, looking about, found a seat in the second row beside a little woman, dressed like a working-girl, with an exalted expression, but having a swelling on one cheek.
The whole staff was present. Citizeness Zoé Lamour, a good-looking, stout, dark woman, wearing red flowers in her black hair, shared the presidency with a thin little Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine.
Just below them, illustrious citizeness Césarine Brau, called the “down-caster of men,” a pretty woman also, was seated at the side of citizen Sapience Cornut, returned from exile. The latter was a solid old man with flowing locks and a ferocious appearance, who gazed about the hall as a cat looks at a flock of birds, his closed fists resting on his knees.
On the right, a delegation of antique citizenesses, severed from their husbands, dried up in celibacy and exasperated with waiting, sat opposite a group of citizen “reformers of humanity,” who had never cut their beards nor their hair, no doubt to indicate the infinitude of their aspirations.
The general public was scattered throughout the hall. It was a mixed gathering.
Women were in the majority, belonging to the rank of concierges and of shopkeepers who close their shops on Sunday. The type of inconsolable old maid appeared everywhere, between the red faces of the women of the bourgeois.
Three college students were whispering in a corner, having come there to be among a crowd of women. A few families had entered the place out of curiosity.
In the front row a Negro, clad in yellow ticking, curly-haired and magnificent, stared at the presiding officers, and grinned from ear to ear with a silent, restrained laugh, that showed his white teeth gleaming out his black face. He laughed without a movement of the body, like a man who was delighted, transported with joy. Why was he there? Mystery. Had he thought he was coming to a show? Or did he say to himself, in his woolly African pate: “Truly, they are very funny, these jokers; we don’t find anything like that under the equator.”
Citizeness Zoé Lamour opened the meeting with a little speech.
She recalled the servitude of woman since the beginning of the world; her obscure, but always heroic position, her constant devotion to all great ideas. She compared her to the people of other times, the people of kings, and of the aristocrats, calling her the eternal martyr for whom every man is a master; and in a great lyric outburst she cried: “The people had its ’eighty-nine—let us have ours! Oppressed man made his Revolution; the captive broke his chain, the outraged slave revolted! Women! let us imitate our despots! Let us revolt! Let us break the ancient chain of marriage and of servitude; let us march to the conquest of our rights, let us, also, make our revolution!”
She sat down amid thunders of applause; and the Negro, wild with joy, knocked his head against his knees, uttering shrill cries.
The Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine, arose, and, in a piercing and ferocious voice, said:
“I am a Russian. I have raised the standard of revolt; this hand of mine has struck the oppressors of my country, and I declare to you, French women now listening to me, I am ready, under all skies, in all parts of the universe, to strike at the tyranny of man, to avenge everywhere women who are so odiously oppressed!”
A great tumult of approbation rose, and citizen Sapience Cornut, himself, standing up, gallantly rubbed his tawny beard against this avenging hand.
Then the ceremonies took on a truly international character. The citizenesses delegated by foreign powers arose, one after another, offering the adhesion of their respective countries. A German woman spoke first. Obese, with a growth of tow hair on her head, she sputtered in a thick voice, and with an atrocious accent:
“I want to tell you all the joy that filled the daughter of Germany when she heard of the great movement of the Parisian women.”
An Italian woman, a Spanish woman, and a Swedish woman each said almost the same thing in queer dialects,
