wanted to make some reply, but the lady interrupted him.

"No, those days are past."

The lawyer cut short her words:--

"Let him express his thought."

"Because there is no more fear," replied the old man.

"But how will you marry people who do not love each other? Only
animals can be coupled at the will of a proprietor. But people have
inclinations, attachments," the lady hastened to say, casting a glance
at the lawyer, at me, and even at the clerk, who, standing up
and leaning his elbow on the back of a seat, was listening to the
conversation with a smile.

"You are wrong to say that, madam," said the old man. "The animals are
beasts, but man has received the law."

"But, nevertheless, how is one to live with a man when there is no
love?" said the lady, evidently excited by the general sympathy and
attention.

"Formerly no such distinctions were made," said the old man, gravely.
"Only now have they become a part of our habits. As soon as the least
thing happens, the wife says: 'I release you. I am going to leave your
house.' Even among the moujiks this fashion has become acclimated.
'There,' she says, 'here are your shirts and drawers. I am going off
with Vanka. His hair is curlier than yours.' Just go talk with them. And
yet the first rule for the wife should be fear."

The clerk looked at the lawyer, the lady, and myself, evidently
repressing a smile, and all ready to deride or approve the merchant's
words, according to the attitude of the others.

"What fear?" said the lady.

"This fear,--the wife must fear her husband; that is what fear."

"Oh, that, my little father, that is ended."

"No, madam, that cannot end. As she, Eve, the woman, was taken from
man's ribs, so she will remain unto the end of the world," said the old
man, shaking his head so triumphantly and so severely that the clerk,
deciding that the victory was on his side, burst into a loud laugh.

"Yes, you men think so," replied the lady, without surrendering, and
turning toward us. "You have given yourself liberty. As for woman, you
wish to keep her in the seraglio. To you, everything is permissible. Is
it not so?"

"Oh, man,--that's another affair."

"Then, according to you, to man everything is permissible?"

"No one gives him this permission; only, if the man behaves badly
outside, the family is not increased thereby; but the woman, the wife,
is a fragile vessel," continued the merchant, severely.

His tone of authority evid