“What poem is it?”
“Now you shall hear. Let us see if he succeeded in this thing. N. N. says that he—I mean the author—is pretty well satisfied with it.”
And so they settle themselves comfortably in her room, and she begins to read:—
“Oi! full, full the little basket is
With brocades and calicoes!
Sweetheart, pity! what a task it is
For the young lad as he goes!”88
“Now I see,” said Kirsánof, after listening to a score or so of stanzas; “this is a new style with him; but it is evidently his. Nekrásof’s?89 Yes? I am very grateful to you for waiting for me.”
“You ought to be,” replied Viéra Pavlovna. Twice they read the little poem over, which, owing to their acquaintance with one of the author’s acquaintances, came into their hands three years before it was published.
“Do you know what verses affected me the most?” asked Viéra Pavlovna, after she had read several times with her husband certain parts of the poem. “These verses are not from the main part of the poem, but oh! my thoughts are greatly drawn to them. When Kátya was waiting for the return of her bridegroom, she was very melancholy:—
‘Had I only time for worrying
I should die, thou heartless one!
Harvest time, and time is hurrying;
Scores of things must now be done!‘Though it often to the maiden comes
That she suffers and must sigh,
Still the hay-cart heavy laden comes,
Still the sickle burns the rye.‘She must thresh with all her might alas!—
Thresh the grain the morning through;
Spread the flax at gloomy night, alas!
On the meadows wet with dew.’90
These verses are not the principal ones in that episode: they are only a preface to the fact how this lovely Kátya is dreaming about her life with Vanja; but my thoughts are greatly drawn to them.”
“Yes, that is a perfect picture—one of the very best in the poem. But they do not hold the best place in it, so they must have corresponded very closely to the thoughts which occupied you. What are these thoughts?”
“They are these, Sasha. You and I have often said that the organization of woman is almost higher than that of man, and that therefore woman may force man to take second rank in intellectual life, when the rough force which predominates at the present time shall pass. We both have come to this conclusion by observation of life; you meet more women in life than men who are intellectual by nature. So it seems to us both. You confirmed this by various facts drawn from anatomy and physiology.”
“What offensive things you are speaking about man, and you say a great deal more than I do about it, Viérotchka. It is insulting to me! It is good that the time which you predict is very far off, else I should entirely change my opinion, so as not to go into the second rank. However, Viérotchka, this is only a probability; science has not collected enough data to settle this question positively.”
“Of course, my dear. We said that until this time the facts of history point to a different conclusion, though it is very probable, as we observe private life and the arrangement of the organism, woman has until lately played such a trifling part in intellectual life, because the predominating force deprived her of the means of culture and the motives for reaching development. This explanation is sufficient. But here is another similar case. If woman is measured by her physical strength, her organism is much weaker; but her organism is stronger. Isn’t that so?”
“This is much less dubious than the question as to the natural endowment of intellectual strength. Yes, a woman’s organism offers a much stronger resistance to material forces of destruction—climate, weather, and unhealthy food. Medicine and physiology have occupied themselves very little with the detailed investigation of this; but statistics have given an indisputable general answer that the average length of woman’s life is more than man’s. From this it can be seen that woman’s organism is stronger.”
“So much the more strikingly can it be seen that the style of woman’s life is generally far less healthful than man’s!”
“There is another important consideration by which the clearness of the result is made more manifest, and that is offered by physiology. Full maturity is reached rather sooner by woman than by man. Let us suppose that a woman’s growth ends at twenty and a man’s at twenty-five—approximately in our climate and in our race. Let us suppose also, approximately, that the same proportion of women reach the age of seventy as of men who reach the age of sixty-five. If we consider the difference in the periods of growth, the preponderance of strength in woman’s organism will appear much more strikingly even than statistics grant, which do not take into consideration the difference in the periods of maturity. Seventy years means three and a half times twenty years. Sixty-five should be divided by twenty-five: how much will it be? Yes, it will go two and a half times, with a remainder—that is, two and three-fifths. Therefore a woman lives three and a half periods of her full development as easily as a man lives only two and a half periods of his. And by this proportion is measured the strength of her organism.”
“Indeed, there is a greater difference than I had believed.”
“Yes, but I mentioned this only for example; I took round numbers, and depended on my memory. However, the conclusion is exactly as I said. Statistics show that woman’s organism is stronger. You got your conclusions only from the tables of life averages. But if the physiological facts are added to the statistical, the difference will be still greater.”
“That is so, Sasha; just consider what I was thinking, and now it comes over me more strongly still. I was thinking, if
