第 五 章 · Chapter V

. Chapter V

“Yes: for ten years I lived the most revolting existence, while

dreaming of the noblest love, and even in the name of that love. Yes, I

want to tell you how I killed my wife, and for that I must tell you how

I debauched myself. I killed her before I knew her.

“I killed _the_ wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and

then it was that I killed _my_ wife. Yes, sir: it is only after having

suffered, after having tortured myself, that I have come to understand

the root of things, that I have come to understand my crimes. Thus you

will see where and how began the drama that has led me to misfortune.

“It is necessary to go back to my sixteenth year, when I was still at

school, and my elder brother a first-year student. I had not yet known

women but, like all the unfortunate children of our society, I was

already no longer innocent. I was tortured, as you were, I am sure, and

as are tortured ninety-nine one-hundredths of our boys. I lived in a

frightful dread, I prayed to God, and I prostrated myself.

“I was already perverted in imagination, but the last steps remained to

be taken. I could still escape, when a friend of my brother, a very gay

student, one of those who are called good fellows,—that is, the

greatest of scamps,—and who had taught us to drink and play cards, took

advantage of a night of intoxication to drag us THERE. We started. My

brother, as innocent as I, fell that night, and I, a mere lad of

sixteen, polluted myself and helped to pollute a sister-woman, without

understanding what I did. Never had I heard from my elders that what I

thus did was bad. It is true that there are the ten commandments of the

Bible; but the commandments are made only to be recited before the

priests at examinations, and even then are not as exacting as the

commandments in regard to the use of _ut_ in conditional propositions.

“Thus, from my elders, whose opinion I esteemed, I had never heard that

this was reprehensible. On the contrary, I had heard people whom I

respected say that it was good. I had heard that my struggles and my

sufferings would be appeased after this act. I had heard it and read

it. I had heard from my elders that it was excellent for the health,

and my friends have always seemed to believe that it contained I know

not what merit and valor. So nothing is seen in it but what is

praiseworthy. As for the danger of disease, it is a foreseen danger.

Does not the government guard against it? And even science corrupts

us.”

“How so, science?” I asked.

“Why, the doctors, the pontiffs of science. Who pervert young people by

laying down such rules of hygiene? Who pervert women by devising and

teaching them ways by which not to have children?

“Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were

spent in curing debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to

exist, whereas now all efforts are employed, not in extirpating

debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of the

consequences. Besides, it is not a question of that. It is a question

of this frightful thing that has happened to me, as it happens to

nine-tenths, if not more, not only of the men of our society, but of

all societies, even peasants,—this frightful thing that I had fallen,

and not because I was subjected to the natural seduction of a certain

woman. No, no woman seduced me. I fell because the surroundings in

which I found myself saw in this degrading thing only a legitimate

function, useful to the health; because others saw in it simply a

natural amusement, not only excusable, but even innocent in a young

man. I did not understand that it was a fall, and I began to give

myself to those pleasures (partly from desire and partly from

necessity) which I was led to believe were characteristic of my age,

just as I had begun to drink and smoke.

“And yet there was in this first fall something peculiar and touching.

I remember that straightway I was filled with such a profound sadness

that I had a desire to weep, to weep over the loss forever of my

relations with woman. Yes, my relations with woman were lost forever.

Pure relations with women, from that time forward, I could no longer

have. I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary

is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine

habit, of a drunkard, and of a smoker.

“Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is

no longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for his

pleasure is no longer normal? He is abnormal forever. He is a

voluptuary. Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit

may be recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a

voluptuary. He may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he

enjoy simple, pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of

glancing at a young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I

became a voluptuary, and I have remained one.”