such shameful deeds, which they never ordained?

Is it because I guard my pure body from being soiled by the filth of this lechery?

Is it because I wish to enjoy my personal liberty, and will take no step until I have consulted my reason and set my princi-ples straight?

O people, you are astray. These blind traditions, which you inherit without any thought or delibera-tion, will write across the record of this civilization of yours a brand of shame that the bowing down of this city will not erase. As for the goddess Venus, she asks of you nothing but pure blossoms, that they may become pure fruits — untouched by the hands of defilement, unstained by the animality of man!

O you! Here is my body — imprison it; here is my flesh — tear it to pieces. But my free spirit you shall never reach, for it is in the sanctuary of truth, in the sanctuary of liberty, in the sanctuary of peace.

And Lula fell silent, as though the beatings of her heart lay between the words; and she looked at the people, and behold, they were silent, standing in awe of her revolt, gazing up at her with believing eyes; and her words — for all their simplicity and inno-cence — had almost worked like magic upon their souls, had not the priest, whom she loved more than a dutiful son loves his father, risen, shouting to the people and pointing his hand at her:

— She is a woman — she is blind temptation — so woe to whoever listens to her.

Had Lula not been a woman, this anthem of rebellion would have remained upon the lips of every Babylonian man and woman.

And Babylon, and Athens, and Corinth would have remained to this day the cradle of civilization, the pilgrim-goal of philosophers, and the lodestar of conquerors' eyes.

But Lula is a woman...

And woman, in the law of man — the man of yesterday, and the man of today, and the man of tomorrow — is a beautiful child, but a wicked one; and therefore, alongside its care, one must at times employ its chas-tisement; and if the matter grows intractable, then its crushing and its extermination — this in excep-tional, critical cases, since doing without it is impossible — alas!

And the centuries passed, one

following upon another, and history turned its massive pages; and behold, the twentieth century stands forth on the last page of them, teeming with wonders and marvels — or with upheavals whose like history never recorded before.

Here is a very small word breathed out by the lips of life: and behold, she is this playful little girl — a child with the gaiety of children, their jesting and their winsomeness, and you love them — but when death snatches away the person dearest to her, she turns aside from their path to stand before death through the long hours, asking it why it dared single out her mother from among the mothers of all the girls of her own age; and when she receives no answer to her question, she turns to life — and how little she knows of it — and asks it why it left her alone, without taking her in its mercy. And when she despairs of an answer, she goes to people — kin, companions, teachers, strangers — to ask them thousands of questions; but all of these give her what neither quenches her burning nor sates her hunger, nor reaches in her soul what she herself would reach in it. Oh, the forlorn girl!

Her young stem ripens; but soon enough she is kept from returning to school, and she stands heed-less, dazed, asking:

— But why does my brother remain free and at large? — Because, girl, he is a boy! — And is a girl some tasty morsel, that one must fear she will be

devoured?! — No — the tradi-tions require of her reserve and seclusion. — The traditions! Why do you cling to them, when God has sent down no authority for them?! — What a chattering rebel you are! Do you want to change the order of the universe? — No — I want you to free yourselves from these worn-out fetters that drag you centuries backward. — But you will accomplish nothing, for you are a girl, and a girl...!! — Is condemned to obedience: what-ever man ordains for her, so be it; and whatever he withholds from her, or withholds her from, she must respect and hold sacred! — And by what right? — By right of the belief prevailing among mankind since the beginning of the world. — And the proof?? — That certain civilized nations, to this very day, deny woman political rights, while they have not denied them to men!! — And why? Because she is a woman... because she is blind temptation, and woe to whoever listens to her.

Lula the Babylonian is stoned a second time and torn apart at the feet of ignorance and injustice.

But the voice of liberty, crying out in her forever, will raise her up alive, her strength renewed, to struggle and to fight.

the correctness of this theory, it was no longer natural in any way, nor logical in any way, to return to debating it, or to inquire into natural phenomena connected with the earth's position with respect to the sun as though that theory did not exist.

Such is the case of those who still treat the question of woman on the basis of debating whether or not she is worthy of performing the full tasks of a citizen, or of arguing back and forth in order to fix woman's place in society, now that the emergence of the feminine element in the public field has become a social reality about which debate has ended, as debate ended over the correctness of the scientific theory to which I referred above.