"Ah, you young girls, that's just like
you,--with your peremptory opinions and your ignorance of life. A man
who once deceives a woman was born under the scaffold on which he
ought to die."
This ridicule stopped Modeste's effervescence for a moment and least,
and again there was silence.
"My child," said the colonel, presently, "men in society, as in nature
everywhere, are made to win the hearts of women, and women must defend
themselves. You have chosen to invert the parts. Was that wise?
Everything is false in a false position. The first wrong-doing was
yours. No, a man is not a monster because he seeks to please a woman;
it is our right to win her by aggression with all its consequences,
short of crime and cowardice. A man may have many virtues even if he
does deceive a woman; if he deceives her, it is because he finds her
wanting in some of the treasures that he sought in her. None but a
queen, an actress, or a woman placed so far above a man that she seems
to him a queen, can go to him of herself without incurring blame--and
for a young girl to do it! Why, she is false to all that God has given
her that is sacred and lovely and noble,--no matter with what grace or
what poetry or what precautions she surrounds her fault.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255