"
I had to smile, and as I fell to musing the beautiful woman suddenly
stood before me in her velvet jacket trimmed with ermine, with the
whip in her hand. And I continued to smile at the woman I had once
loved so insanely, at the fur-jacket that had once so entranced me,
at the whip, and ended by smiling at myself and saying: The cure was
cruel, but radical; but the main point is, I have been cured.
* * * * *
"And the moral of the story?" I said to Severin when I put the
manuscript down on the table.
"That I was a donkey," he exclaimed without turning around, for he
seemed to be embarrassed. "If only I had beaten her!"
"A curious remedy," I exclaimed, "which might answer with your
peasant-women--"
"Oh, they are used to it," he replied eagerly, "but imagine the
effect upon one of our delicate, nervous, hysterical ladies--"
"But the moral?"
"That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present
educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot,
but _never his companion._ This she can become only when she has
the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work.
"At present we have only the choice of being hammer or anvil, and I
was the kind of donkey who let a woman make a slave of him, do you
understand?
"The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be
whipped, deserves to be whipped.
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