daughters might have to endure almost any maltreatment from
their husbands, so long as these have but the sense not to employ
weapons that leave almost ineffaceable marks. This is one main reason
why we so anxiously avoid giving them save to those who are bound by
the ties of our faith to treat them as kindly as children--for whom,
at the worst, they remain sisters of the Order. If women generally had
parents, our marriage law could never have carried out the fiction of
equality to its logical perfection and practical monstrosity."

"Equality, then, has given your women a harder life and a worse
position than that of those women in our world who are, not only by
law but by fact and custom, the slaves of their husbands?"

"Yes, indeed," he said; "and our proverbs, though made by men, express
this truth with a sharpness in which there is little exaggeration. Our
school textbooks tell us that action and reaction are equal and
opposite; and this familiar phrase gives meaning to the saw, _Pelmave
dakal dake,_ 'She is equal, the thing struck to the hammer,' meaning
that woman's equality to man is no more effective than the reaction of
the leather on the mallet. 'Bitterer smiles of twelve than tears of
ten' (referring to the age of marriage). _Thleen delkint treen lalfe
zevleen_, ''Twixt fogs and clouds she dreams of stars.'"

"What _does_ that mean?"

"Would you not render it in the terminology of the hymn you translated
for us, 'Between Purgatory and Hell, one dream of Heaven?' Still
puzzled? 'Between the harshness of school and the misery of marriage,
the illusions of the bride.' Again, _Zefoo zevleel, zave marneel,
clafte cratheneel_, 'A child [cries] for the stars, a maiden for the
matron's dress, a woman for her shroud.'"

"Do you mean to say that that is not exaggerated?"

"I suppose it is, as women are even less given to suicide than men.
That is perhaps the ugliest proverb of its kind. I will only quote one
more, and that is two-edged--

"'Fool he who heeds a woman's tears, to woman's tongue replies;
Fool she who braves man's hand--but when was man or woman wise?'"

Here Zulve came to the door and made a sign to her husband. Waiting
courteously to ascertain that I had finished speaking, and until his
son had somewhat ceremoniously taken leave of me, he led me to the
door of a chamber next to that I had hitherto occupied. Pausing here
himself, he motioned me to go on, and the door parting, I found myself
i