Do you
understand?"
"And you call that justice? Can you honestly maintain that it is?
Ought we not all to share and share alike?"
"No, not always. One ought to share according to circumstances and
merit. The idler who lies in the grass and watches the mason building
a house, should have a smaller share than the mason."
"Do you mean to insinuate that I am lazy?"
"H'm! I'd rather not say anything about that. But when I used to lie
on the sofa, reading, you considered me a loafer, and I well remember
that you said something to that effect in very plain language."
"But what am I to do?"
"Take the children out for walks."
"I'm not constituted to look after the children."
"But there was a time when I had to do it. Let me tell you that a
woman who says that she is not constituted to look after children,
isn't a woman. But that fact doesn't make a man of her, by any means.
What is she, then?"
"Shame on you that you should speak like that of the mother of your
children!"
"What does the world call a man who will have nothing to do with
women? Isn't it something very ugly?"
"I won't hear another word!"
And she left him and locked herself into her room.
She fell ill. The doctor, the almighty man, who took over the care of
the body when the priest lost the care of the soul, pronounced country
air and solitude to be harmful.
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