before my daughter: her hair is long, because her wit is. …”
“Just what they thought of the negroes before their emancipation!” said Pestsov angrily.
“What seems strange to me is that women should seek fresh duties,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, “while we see, unhappily, that men usually try to avoid them.”
“Duties are bound up with rights—power, money, honor; those are what women are seeking,” said Pestsov.
“Just as though I should seek the right to be a wet-nurse and feel injured because women are paid for the work, while no one will take me,” said the old prince.
Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter and Sergey Ivanovitch regretted that he had not made this comparison. Even Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled.
“Yes, but a man can’t nurse a baby,” said Pestsov, “while