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CHAPTER XV.
"Yes, jealousy, that is another of the secrets of marriage known to all
and concealed by all. Besides the general cause of the mutual hatred of
husbands and wives resulting from complicity in the pollution of a human
being, and also from other causes, the inexhaustible source of marital
wounds is jealousy. But by tacit consent it is determined to conceal
them from all, and we conceal them. Knowing them, each one supposes in
himself that it is an unfortunate peculiarity, and not a common destiny.
So it was with me, and it had to be so. There cannot fail to be jealousy
between husbands and wives who live immorally. If they cannot sacrifice
their pleasures for the welfare of their child, they conclude therefrom,
and truly, that they will not sacrifice their pleasures for, I will not
say happiness and tranquillity (since one may sin in secret), but even
for the sake of conscience. Each one knows very well that neither admits
any high moral reasons for not betraying the other, since in their
mutual relations they fail in the requirements of morality, and from
that time distrust and watch each other.
"Oh, what a frightful feeling of jealousy! I do not speak of that real
jealousy which has foundations (it is tormenting, but it promises an
issue), but of that unconscious jealousy which inevitably accompanies
every immoral marriage, and which, having no cause, has no end. This
jealousy is frightful. Frightful, that is the word.
"
And this is it. A young man speaks to my wife. He looks at her with a
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