your
mistress such an one; that is best, I admit. You have discovered that she
has deceived you; does that oblige you to depose and to abuse her, to
believe her deserving of your hatred?

"Even if your mistress had never deceived you, even if at this moment she
loved none other than you, think, Octave, how far her love would still be
from perfection, how human it would be, how small, how restrained by the
hypocrisies and conventions of the world; remember that another man
possessed her before you, that many others will possess her after you.

"Reflect: what drives you at this moment to despair is the idea of
perfection in your mistress, the idea that has been shattered. But when
you understand that the primal idea itself was human, small and
restricted, you will see that it is little more than a rung in the rotten
ladder of human imperfection.

"I think you will readily admit that your mistress has had other
admirers, and that she will have still others in the future; you will
doubtless reply that it matters little, so long as she loved you. But I
ask you, since she has had others, what difference does it make whether
it was yesterday or two years since? Since she loves but one at a time,
what does it matter whether it is during an interval of two years or in
the course of a single night? Are you a man, Octave? Do you see the
leaves falling from the trees, the sun rising and setting? Do you hear
the ticking of the horologe of time with each pulsation of your heart? Is
there, then, such a difference between the love of a year and the love of
an hour? I challenge you to answer that, you fool, as you sit there
looking out at the infinite through a window not larger than your hand.

"You consider that woman faithful who loves you two years; you must have
an almanac that will indicate just how long it takes for an honest man's
kisses to dry on a woman's lips. You make a distinction between the woman
who sells herself for money and the one who gives herself for pleasure;
between the one who gives herself through pride and the one who gives
herself through devotion. Among women who are for sale, some cost more
than others; among those who are sought for pleasure some inspire more
confidence than others; and among those who are worthy of devotion there
are some who receive a third of a man's heart, others a quarter, others a
half, depending upon her education, her manner, her name, her birth, her
beauty, her temperament, ac