dren in sorrow, and in death: and you, why do you not keep the commandment which concerns you? Give your children bread earned by your own labor."[1] In brief, you cannot reply to that, and you are left like a fish gasping on the sand.
165. How blind you are, O wise man! You search the Holy Scriptures with all your eyes, but you cannot see there the way to relieve yourself and the flock that God has confided to your care from the burden of sin. You do not see the path that will conduct you to life eternal. You are like the inhabitants of Sodom who were struck with blindness when they sought for Lot's door.[2] But these were in-
- ↑ Compare these reflections of Bondareff's with Tolstoï's ideas in the admirable chapter "To Women!" which completes the book What should be done:
"This woman, who, with all the attraction of her personal charms, still evades her own duties under the law of motherhood, becomes a fit companion for the man who has denied the obligations of his own law of labor; and they thus both lose the true meaning and intention of their existence.
"From this proceeds the astonishing folly called the rights of women. These rights we here formulate.
"'Ah, you men,' says woman, 'you transgress your own law of labor, but you wish us to fulfil ours. Truly no! As it is with you, it shall be with us. We will share your pretended labors at banks, universities, and academies; and we will, like you, adopt the pretext of division of labor, and will have a hand in all the social and worldly occupations that we please.'" (What should be done, page 372.)
- ↑ Alluding to Genesis xix. 10, 11: "But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of
