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CHAPTER VI.
"Yes, so it is; and that went farther and farther with all sorts of
variations. My God! when I remember all my cowardly acts and bad deeds,
I am frightened. And I remember that 'me' who, during that period, was
still the butt of his comrades' ridicule on account of his innocence.
"And when I hear people talk of the gilded youth, of the officers, of
the Parisians, and all these gentlemen, and myself, living wild lives
at the age of thirty, and who have on our consciences hundreds of
crimes toward women, terrible and varied, when we enter a parlor or a
ball-room, washed, shaven, and perfumed, with very white linen, in dress
coats or in uniform, as emblems of purity, oh, the disgust! There
will surely come a time, an epoch, when all these lives and all this
cowardice will be unveiled!
"So, nevertheless, I lived, until the age of thirty, without abandoning
for a minute my intention of marrying, and building an elevated conjugal
life; and with this in view I watched all young girls who might suit me.
I was buried in rottenness, and at the same time I looked for virgins,
whose purity was worthy of me! Many of them were rejected: they did not
seem to me pure enough!
"Finally I found one that I considered on a level with myself. She was
one of two daughters of a landed proprietor of Penza, formerly very rich
and since ruined. To tell the truth, without false modesty, they pursued
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