There you have the greatness of the novel itself. It won’t _let_ you tell didactic lies, and put them over. Nobody in the world is anything but delighted when Vronsky gets Anna Karénina. Then what about the sin?--Why, when you look at it, all the tragedy comes from Vronsky’s and Anna’s fear of _society_. The monster was social, not phallic at all. They couldn’t live in the pride of their sincere passion, and spit in Mother Grundy’s eye. And that, that cowardice, was the real “sin”. The novel makes it obvious, and knocks all old Leo’s teeth out. “As an officer I am still useful. But as a man, I am a ruin,” says Vronsky--or words to that effect. Well what a skunk, collapsing as a man and a male, and remaining merely as a social instrument; an “officer”, God love us!--merely because people at the opera turn backs on him! As if people’s backs weren’t preferable to their faces, anyhow! And old Leo tries to make out, it was all because of the phallic sin. Old liar! Because where would any of Leo’s books be, without the phallic splendour? And then to blame the column of blood, which really gave him all his life riches! The Judas! Cringe to a mangy, bloodless Society, and try to dress up that dirty old Mother Grundy in a new bonnet and face-powder of Christian-Socialism. Brothers indeed! Sons of a castrated Father! The novel itself gives Vronsky a kick in the behind, and knocks old Leo’s teeth out, and leaves us to learn. It is such a bore that nearly all great novelists have a didactic purpose, otherwise a philosophy, directly opposite to their passional inspiration. In their passional inspiration, they are all phallic worshippers. From Balzac to Hardy, it is so. Nay, from Apuleius to E. M. Forster. Yet all of them, when it comes to their philosophy, or what they think-they-are, they are all crucified Jesuses. What a bore! And what a burden for the novel to carry! But the novel has carried it. Several thousands of thousands of lamentable crucifixions of self-heroes and self-heroines. Even the silly duplicity of _Resurrection_, and the wickeder duplicity of Salammbô, with that flayed phallic Matho, tortured upon the Cross of a gilt Princess. You can’t fool the novel. Even with man crucified upon a woman: his “dear cross”. The novel will show you how dear she was: dear at any price. And it will leave you with a bad taste of disgust against these heroes who _turn_ their women into a “dear cross”, and _ask_ for their own crucifixion.