[The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoi]@TWC D-Link bookThe Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories CHAPTER XVI 5/16
Why endure all these tortures? What was the use of so much love, if the little ones were to die? The cow has no logic which tells it to have no more children, and, if any come accidentally, to neither love nor nurse them, that it may not suffer.
But our wives reason, and reason in this way, and that is why I said that, when a man does not live as a man, he is beneath the animal." "But then, how is it necessary to act, in your opinion, in order to treat children humanly ?" I asked. "How? Why, love them humanly." "Well, do not mothers love their children ?" "They do not love them humanly, or very seldom do, and that is why they do not love them even as dogs.
Mark this, a hen, a goose, a wolf, will always remain to woman inaccessible ideals of animal love.
It is a rare thing for a woman to throw herself, at the peril of her life, upon an elephant to snatch her child away, whereas a hen or a sparrow will not fail to fly at a dog and sacrifice itself utterly for its children. Observe this, also.
Woman has the power to limit her physical love for her children, which an animal cannot do.
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