Sayfa 880 / 1294

"Because I don't want in your free marriage to be made a fool of

and to bring up another man's children, that's why I want legal

marriage," Luzhin replied in order to make some answer.

He seemed preoccupied by something.

"Children? You referred to children," Lebeziatnikov started off

like a warhorse at the trumpet call. "Children are a social

question and a question of first importance, I agree; but the

question of children has another solution. Some refuse to have

children altogether, because they suggest the institution of the

family. We'll speak of children later, but now as to the question

of honour, I confess that's my weak point. That horrid, military,

Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of the

future. What does it mean indeed? It's nonsense, there will be no

deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural

consequence of a legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a

protest. So that indeed it's not humiliating... and if I ever, to

suppose an absurdity, were to be legally married, I should be

positively glad of it. I should say to my wife: 'My dear,

hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for you've shown

you can protest!' You laugh!