“So I repulsed him, as I would have repulsed a foe. And here,” she concluded suddenly, in a falsetto of spasmodic laughter, “here my little idyll comes to an end.”
“But do you love the man still?”
“I do.”
From the farmyard comes the crowing of a cock: as a key that grates in a rusty lock, it grates on our ears. Dawn is here.
I like the man; or it may be that I rather like his surroundings, inseparably connected in thought with him. I like those rooms of severe aspect, with their high ceilings, and shelves which are nearly as high filled with books, all in regular order and bound in black. I like the great table in the centre, lit up with bright lamps, and strewn with periodicals in every language. I like, too, those heavy, comfortable, leather-covered arm-chairs which stand round it. Obojanski also I like, who in this environment is a handsome man, with grey hair and eyes dark and youthful.
Formerly my professor, Obojanski has been extremely useful to me in my studies. The profit I have derived from him is, however, chiefly negative, from the critical side of his teaching. It still pleases him, in our mutual relations, to take up the attitude of a master.
Generally I come to him late in the evening, dressed in black, in the style of “la dame voilée.” If he is working, I sit with him, and set to reading some interesting book: but we mostly converse together, and invariably of serious things.
Obojanski is an old bachelor, and objects to women as a rule. “The idea of emancipation, possibly not quite unreasonable in principle, has been misunderstood and warped from its true meaning by the women themselves. For instance, they are not content with equality in the field of economics; they want to have the same freedom in their conduct as is enjoyed by men. A fine place the world would be, if they had! And, as concerns the admission of women to the higher studies, this is absolutely superfluous: a woman’s brain is not able to think with the logical accuracy which these require.”
“As to this last,” I reply, “a census of the sexes would not, I think, be desirable. It may well be doubted, not only whether all males, but whether all learned men, are capable of accurate logical reasoning.”
“Oh, of course, exceptions are everywhere to be found,” he answers gravely, with his own peculiar directness of mental association.