And the women-physicians are also endeavouring in
this matter, and endeavouring disgustingly enough. 'Oh, dear,
regulation! Oh, dear, abolition! Oh, dear, live merchandise! A
condition of slavery! The mesdames, these greedy haeterae! These
heinous degenerates of humanity, sucking the blood of
prostitutes!' ... But with clamour you will scare no one and will
affect no one. You know, there's a little saying: much cry, little
wool. More awful than all awful words--a hundredfold more awful--
is some such little prosaic stroke or other as will suddenly knock
you all in a heap, like a blow on the forehead. Take even Simeon,
the porter here. It would seem, according to you, there is no
sinking lower--a bouncer in a brothel, a brute, almost certainly a
murderer, he plucks the prostitutes, gives them "black eyes," to
use a local expression--that is, just simply beats them. But, do
you know on what grounds he and I came together and became
friendly? On the magnificent details of the divine service of the
prelate, on the canon of the honest Andrew, pastor of Crete, on
the works of the most beatific father, John the Damascene.
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