lia’s Reviews > The Kreutzer Sonata > Status Update

"The astonishing thing is how complete is the illusion that beauty equals goodness. A beautiful woman says stupid things: you listen and don't see the stupidity, only the cleverness. She says and does nasty things: you see only nice things. When she doesn't say anything stupid or nasty, and is a beautiful woman, you immediately convince yourself that she's a jewel of intelligence and virtue.”

“I did not understand that depravity does not consist simply in physical acts, that no matter what physical ignominy does not constitute depravity, and that real depravity consists in freedom from the moral bonds toward a woman with whom one enters into carnal relations, and I regarded this freedom as a merit. I once tortured myself for having forgotten to pay a woman who had given herself to me through love.”