"Thanks," said Colette, rather annoyed. She turned to the piano and began again, made mistakes, thumped the keyboard, and moaned: "I can't!... I'm no good at all. I believe you are right. Women aren't any good." "It's something to be able to say so," said Christophe genially. She looked at him rather sheepishly, like a little girl who has been scolded, and said: "Don't be so hard." "I'm not saying anything hard about good women," replied Christophe gaily. "A good woman is Paradise on earth. Only, Paradise on earth...." "I know. No one has ever seen it." "I'm not so pessimistic. I say only that I have never seen it: but that's no reason why it should not exist. I'm determined to find it, if it does exist. But it is not easy. A good woman and a man of genius are equally rare." "And all the other men and women don't count?" "On the contrary, it is only they who count--for the world." "But for you?" "For me, they don't exist." "You _are_ hard," repeated Colette. "A little. Somebody has to be hard, if only in the interest of the others!... If there weren't a few pebbles here and there in the world, the whole thing would go to pulp." "Yes. You are right. It is a good thing for you that you are strong," said Colette sadly. "But you must not be too hard on men,--and especially on women who aren't strong.... You don't know how terrible our weakness is to us. Because you see us flirting, and laughing, and doing silly things, you think we never dream of anything else, and you despise us. Ah! if you could see all that goes on in the minds of the girls of from fifteen to eighteen as they go out into society, and have the sort of success that comes to their youth and freshness--when they have danced, and talked smart nonsense, and said bitter things at which people laugh because they laugh, when they have given themselves to imbeciles, and sought in vain in their eyes the light that is nowhere to be found,--if you could see them in their rooms at night, in silence, alone, kneeling in agony to pray!..." "Is it possible?" said Christophe, altogether amazed. "What! you, too, have suffered?" Colette did not reply: but tears came to her eyes. She tried to smile and held out her hand to Christophe: he grasped it warmly. "What would you have us do? There is nothing to do. You men can free yourselves and do what you like. But we are bound for ever and ever within the narrow circle of the duties and pleasures of society: we cannot break free." "There is nothing to prevent your freeing yourselves, finding some work you like, and winning your independence just as we do."