Connected with the conversation that had sprung up on the rights

of women there were certain questions as to the inequality of

rights in marriage improper to discuss before the ladies.

Pestsov had several times during dinner touched upon these

questions, but Sergey Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch

carefully drew him off them.

When they rose from the table and the ladies had gone out,

Pestsov did not follow them, but addressing Alexey

Alexandrovitch, began to expound the chief ground of inequality.

The inequality in marriage, in his opinion, lay in the fact that

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the infidelity of the wife and the infidelity of the husband

are punished unequally, both by the law and by public opinion.

Stepan Arkadyevitch went hurriedly up to Alexey Alexandrovitch

and offered him a cigar.

"No, I don't smoke," Alexey Alexandrovitch answered calmly, and

as though purposely wishing to show that he was not afraid of the

subject, he turned to Pestsov with a chilly smile.

"I imagine that such a view has a foundation in the very nature

of things," he said, and would have gone on to the drawing room.

But at this point Turovtsin broke suddenly and unexpectedly into

the conversation, addressing Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"You heard, perhaps, about Pryatchnikov?" said Turovtsin, warmed

up by the champagne he had drunk, and long waiting for an

opportunity to break the silence that had weighed on him. "Vasya

Pryatchnikov," he said, with a good-natured smile on his damp,

red lips, addressing himself principally to the most important

guest, Alexey Alexandrovitch, "they told me today he fought a

duel with Kvitsky at Tver, and has killed him."

Just as it always seems that one bruises oneself on a sore place,

so Stepan Arkadyevitch felt now that the conversation would by

ill luck fall every moment on Alexey Alexandrovitch's sore spot.

He would again have got his brother-in-law away, but Alexey

Alexandrovitch himself inquired, with curiosity: "What did Pryatchnikov fight about?"

"His wife. Acted like a man, he did! Called him out and shot

him!"

"Ah!" said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, and lifting his

eyebrows, he went into the drawing room.

"How glad I am you have come," Dolly said with a frightened

smile, meeting him in the outer drawing room. "I must talk to

you. Let's sit here."

Alexey Alexandrovitch, with the same expression of indifference,

given him by his lifted eyebrows, sat down beside Darya

Alexandrovna, and smiled affectedly.

"It's fortunate," said he, "especially as I was meaning to ask

you to excuse me, and to be taking leave. I have to start

tomorrow."




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