" "Duties are bound up with rights--power, money, honor; those are what women are seeking," said Pestsov.

"Just as though I should seek the right to be a wet-nurse and feel injured because women are paid for the work, while no one will take me," said the old prince.

Turovtsin exploded in a loud roar of laughter and Sergey Ivanovitch regretted that he had not made this comparison.

Even Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled.

"Yes, but a man can't nurse a baby," said Pestsov, "while a woman..." "No, there was an Englishman who did suckle his baby on board ship," said the old prince, feeling this freedom in conversation permissible before his own daughters.