What is to be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky

Meantime, so far as the old man Pólozof could judge, the affair was coming to a marriage. When the probable bride and probable bridegroom were getting to be so intimate, it was evident that there would be a marriage. Has he not heard their talk? To be sure, his daughter and the probable bridegroom were not always under his eyes. More often than not they would sit by themselves or walk together by themselves; but this did not change in the least the tenor of their conversations. Even the shrewdest student of the human heart would have never suspected, had he heard them talk, that Beaumont would marry Katerina Vasílyevna. Not that they never spoke about their feelings. They spoke about them as they spoke about everything else in the world; but they said excessively little about them; and even this little counted as nothing from the tone in which they spoke. The tone was vexatious from its very calmness, and what they said would have seemed terribly absurd to anyone in society. Now, for example, it happened that in about a week after the visit for which Beaumont was so grateful to Katerina Vasílyevna, and in about two months after their acquaintance had begun, the sale of the factory was accomplished. Mr. Lotter was intending to leave on the following day. (And he left; don't imagine that he is going to bring a catastrophe. He, as is common with business men in transacting commercial operations, told Beaumont that the firm would make him the manager of the factory, at the salary of a thousand pounds, as might have been expected, and nothing more. What need had he, as a business man, to interfere with Beaumont's love affairs? ) The shareholders, including Pólozof, were to receive, on the following day (and they did receive all that they expected. Here, again, you must not expect a catastrophe; for the firm of Hodgson, Lotter and Company is a very reliable one) half in ready cash, and half in notes payable in three months. Pólozof, full of satisfaction at this turn of affairs, was sitting at his table in the reception-room, and was counting over the banknotes. He overheard in part the conversation that was going on between his daughter and Beaumont, as they passed through the reception-room. They were walking through the four rooms of the flat that faced on the street.

"If a woman, a girl, is embarrassed with prejudices," said Beaumont (not committing any Americanisms or Anglicisms), "then a man -- I speak of respectable men -- is subject to great inconveniences on that account. Tell me, how can one marry a girl who has not been trained in the simple duties of life, who does not realize what relations may arise after she has accepted an offer? She may not be able to judge whether she will enjoy her life with the man who is to be her husband."