“‘Let us change the conversation, Natalya Stepanovna,’ I began.  ’Let us talk of something amusing.  First of all, allow me, for the sake of old times, to call you Kisotchka.’

“She allowed me.

“‘Tell me, please, Kisotchka,’ I went on, ’what is the matter with all the fair sex here.  What has happened to them?  In old days they were all so moral and virtuous, and now, upon my word, if one asks about anyone, one is told such things that one is quite shocked at human nature. . . .  One young lady has eloped with an officer; another has run away and carried off a high-school boy with her; another—­a married woman—­has run away from her husband with an actor; a fourth has left her husband and gone off with an officer, and so on and so on.  It’s a regular epidemic!  If it goes on like this there won’t be a girl or a young woman left in your town!’

“I spoke in a vulgar, playful tone.  If Kisotchka had laughed in response I should have gone on in this style:  ’You had better look out, Kisotchka, or some officer or actor will be carrying you off!’ She would have dropped her eyes and said:  ’As though anyone would care to carry me off; there are plenty younger and better looking . . . .’  And I should have said:  ’Nonsense, Kisotchka—­I for one should be delighted!’ And so on in that style, and it would all have gone swimmingly.  But Kisotchka did not laugh in response; on the contrary, she looked grave and sighed.

“‘All you have been told is true,’ she said.  ’My cousin Sonya ran away from her husband with an actor.  Of course, it is wrong. . . .  Everyone ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him, but I do not condemn them or blame them. . . .  Circumstances are sometimes too strong for anyone!’

“’That is so, Kisotchka, but what circumstances can produce a regular epidemic?’

“‘It’s very simple and easy to understand,’ replied Kisotchka, raising her eyebrows.  ’There is absolutely nothing for us educated girls and women to do with ourselves.  Not everyone is able to go to the University, to become a teacher, to live for ideas, in fact, as men do.  They have to be married. . . .  And whom would you have them marry?  You boys leave the high-school and go away to the University, never to return to your native town again, and you marry in Petersburg or Moscow, while the girls remain. . . .  To whom are they to be married?  Why, in the absence of decent cultured men, goodness knows what sort of men they marry—­stockbrokers and such people of all kinds, who can do nothing but drink and get into rows at the club. . . .  A girl married like that, at random. . . .  And what is her life like afterwards?  You can understand:  a well-educated, cultured woman is living with a stupid, boorish man; if she meets a cultivated man, an officer, an actor, or a doctor—­well, she gets to love him, her life becomes unbearable to her, and she runs away from her husband.  And one can’t condemn her!’