peak of love as a phase--isn't it a
necessary phase? Quite apart from reproduction the love of the sexes
is necessary. Isn't it love, sexual love, which has released the
imagination? Without that stir, without that impulse to go out from
ourselves, to be reckless of ourselves and wonderful, would our lives be
anything more than the contentment of the stalled ox?'

'The key that opens the door,' said Karenin, 'is not the goal of the
journey.'

'But women!' cried Rachel. 'Here we are! What is our future--as women?
Is it only that we have unlocked the doors of the imagination for you
men? Let us speak of this question now. It is a thing constantly in my
thoughts, Karenin. What do you think of us? You who must have thought so
much of these perplexities.'

Karenin seemed to weigh his words. He spoke very deliberately. 'I do not
care a rap about your future--as women. I do not care a rap about the
future of men--as males. I want to destroy these peculiar futures. I
care for your future as intelligences, as parts of and contribution
to the universal mind of the race. Humanity is not only naturally
over-specialised in these matters, but all its institutions, its
customs, everything, exaggerate, intensify this difference. I want to
unspecialise women. No new idea. Plato wanted exactly that. I do not
want to go on as we go now, emphasising this natural difference; I do
not deny it, but I want to reduce it and overcome it.'

'And--we remain women,' said Rachel Borken. 'Need you remain thinking of
yourselves as women?'

'It is forced upon us,' said Edith Haydon.

'I do not think a woman becomes less of a woman because she dresses and
works like a man,' said Edwards. 'You women here, I mean you scientific
women, wear white clothing like the men, twist up your hair in the
simplest fashion, go about your work as though there was only one sex in
the world. You are just as much women, even if you are not so feminine,
as the fine ladies down below there in the plains who dress for
excitement and display, whose only thoughts are of lovers, who
exaggerate every difference.... Indeed we love you more.'

'But we go about our work,' said Edith Haydon.

'So does it matter?' asked Rachel.

'If you go about your work and if the men go about their work then for
Heaven's sake be as much woman as you wish,' said Karenin. 'When I ask
you to unspecialise, I am thinking not of the abolition of sex, but the
abolition of the irksome, restrict