Читать книгу Kobiety (Women). A Novel of Polish Life онлайн

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Yes, but now and then in the dim blue twilight, she plays Der Frühling of Grieg: and then I feel that what she says is not the truth. In her notes there is a tone of longing unspeakable, that begs, with gentle half-audible entreaty... for something. And that fair white soul of her is always sobbing with pain, and dreaming—ever dreaming—of love.

When all is said, I am clever, young, and good-looking: so I want to live my life. Nietzsche will not have us forget the law: For a woman, a stick. Amiel declares she must love one only, and obey a sex-morality that has been made for her alone. Garborg tells us that she ought not to go anywhere without a governess, so that her future husband may find suspicion impossible. In spite of all which, I am resolved to live my own woman’s life.

Hitherto I have not found out what femininity essentially is. In the Roslawski period, I piously believed æsthetic feeling to be the great typical quality of womanliness. But now—Ellen Key asserts that the woman always shapes herself as the man desires. If then he, the Only One, be a primitive, masterful, despotic man, am I to season his siesta and cigar with witty conversation, and bind my hair and dance and sound the timbrel for him, whilst to all others my eyes alone are to be visible, my face hidden under a veil? I want to live my woman’s life... nothing more. Until, perhaps....