have always been ignorant; it makes us comprehend
that the realities of our dreams are but noisome ordures.

* * * * *

I love her too for her walk. "Even when the bird walks one feels that it
has wings," as the poet has said. When she passes one feels that she is
of another race from ordinary women, of a race more delicate, and more
divine. I shall marry her to-morrow. But I am afraid, I am afraid of so
many things!

* * * * *

Two beasts, two dogs, two wolves, two foxes, cut their way through the
plantation and encounter one another. One of each two is male, the other
female. They couple. They couple in consequence of an animal instinct,
which forces them to continue the race, their race, the one from which
they have sprung, the hairy coat, the form, movements and habitudes. The
whole of the animal creation do the same without knowing why.

We human beings, also.

It is for this I have married; I have obeyed that insane passion which
throws us in the direction of the female.

* * * * *

She is my wife. In accordance with my ideal desires, she comes very
nearly to realize my unrealizable dream. But in separating from her, even
for a second, after I have held her in my arms, she becomes no more than
the being whom nature has made use of, to disappoint all my hopes.

Has she disappointed them? No. And why have I grown weary of her, become
loath even to touch her; she cannot graze even the palm of my hand, or
the tip of my lips, but my heart throbs with unutterable disgust, not
perhaps disgust of her, but a disgust more potent, more widespread, more
loathsome; the disgust, in a word, of carnal love so vile in itself that
it has become for all refined beings, a shameful thing, which is
necessary to conceal, which one never speaks of save in a whisper, nor
without blushing.

* * * * *

I can no longer bear the idea of my wife coming near me, calling me by
name, with a smile; I cannot look at her, nor touch even her arm, I
cannot do it any more. At one time I thought to be kissed by her, would
be to transport me to St. Paul's seventh heaven. One day, she was
suffering from one of those transient fevers, and I smelled in her
breath, a subtle, slight almost imperceptible puff of human putridity; I
was completely overthrown.

Oh! the flesh, with its seductive and eager smell, a putrefaction