ething; without, it is not worth a bag of chaff."

"Let us see what you have to say about individual love,--or better
still, put in its place woman."

"Very well, let it be woman."

"My good friend, do you not perceive on what brittle foundation you
are building human happiness?"

"On about as brittle a foundation as life,--no more nor less!"

I did not want to drift into a discussion of life and death, and
pulled Sniatynski up.

"For mercy's sake, do not generalize about individual happiness. You
chanced to find the right woman, another might not."

He would not even listen to that. According to his view, ninety out of
a hundred were successful. Women were better, purer, and nobler than
men.

"We are rascals all, in comparison with them!" he shouted, waving his
arms and snaking his leonine mane. "Nothing but rascals! It is I who
say it,--I, who study mankind closely, if only for the reason that I
am a playwright."

He was sitting astride on his chair, attacking me, as it were, with
the chairback, and went on with his usual impetuosity:--

"There are, as Dumas says, apes from the land of Nod, who know neither
curb nor bridle; but what are eyes given for but to see that you do
not take to wife an ape from Nod? Generally speaking a woman does not
betray her husband nor deceive him, unless he himself corrupts her
heart, tramples on her feelings, or repulses and estranges her by his
meanness, his selfishness, narrowness, and his miserable, worthless
nature. You must love her! Let her feel that she is not only your
female, but the crown of your head, as precious as your child and
friend; wear her close to your heart, let her feel the warmth of it,
and you may rest in peace; year after year she will cling closer to
you, until you two are like Siamese twins. If you do not give her all
that, you pervert her, estrange her by your worthlessness,--and she
will leave you. She will leave you as soon as she sees nobler hands
stretched out for her; she is forced to do it, as this warmth, this
appreciation, are as necessary to her life as the air she breathes."

He charged me with the chairback as with a battering ram. I retreated
before him until we had come close to the window; there he jumped up.

"How blind you are! In presence of such social drought, such utter
absence of general happiness as stamps our time, not to grasp this
felicity that is within reach! Shiver on the forum, and not light a
fire at home! Idiotism