I seized her hand. "Sit down here," I said,
"and listen to me."
"What is the use? It is not you who speak."
I felt ashamed of my own strategy and abandoned it.
"Listen to me," I repeated, "and come, I beg of you, sit down near me. If
you wish to remain silent yourself, at least hear what I have to say."
"I am listening, what have you to say to me?"
"If some one should say to me: 'You are a coward!' I, who am twenty-two
years of age and have fought on the field of honor, would throw the taunt
back in the teeth of my accuser. Have I not within me the consciousness
of what I am? It would be necessary for me to meet my accuser on the
field, and play my life against his; why? In order to prove that I am not
a coward; otherwise, the world would believe it. That single word demands
that reply every time it is spoken, and it matters not by whom."
"It is true; what is your meaning?"
"Women do not fight; but as society is constituted there is no being, of
whatever sex, who ought to submit to the indignity involved in an
aspersion on all his or her past life, be that life regulated as by a
pendulum. Reflect; who escapes that law? There are some, I admit; but
what happens? If it is a man, dishonor; if it is a woman, what?
Forgiveness. Every one who lives ought to give some evidence of life,
some proof of existence. There is, then, for woman as well as for man, a
time when an attack must be resented.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268