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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
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