What is to be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky

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Does it ever happen that people do such things? Do young girls who are in love ever make such visits? Not to speak of the fact that no well-trained young lady would allow herself to do such a thing; but if she did, the conversation would be quite different. If the action performed by Katerina Vasílyevna was contrary to morality, then still more contrary to the generally accepted ideas as to the relations between men and young women, would be the character, so to speak, of this immoral action. Isn't it clear that Katerina Vasílyevna and Beaumont were not human beings, but fish? and if they were human beings, that they had the blood of fishes in their veins? The way that she usually behaved towards him in her own house, also absolutely corresponded with this theory.

"I am too tired to talk, Mr. Beaumont," she used to say when he stayed late. "You stay with papa, but I am going to bed"; and she used to leave him.

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