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became baser than ever.
"
The peasant and the workingman need children, and hence their conjugal
relations have a justification. But we, when we have a few children,
have no need of any more. They make a superfluous confusion of expenses
and joint heirs, and are an embarrassment. Consequently we have no
excuses for our existence as wretches, but we are so deeply degraded
that we do not see the necessity of a justification. The majority of
people in contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery
without the slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so to
speak, the conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code. But in
this matter neither of these consciences is struck. There is not a being
in society who blushes at it. Each one practices it,--X, Y, Z, etc. What
is the use of multiplying beggars, and depriving ourselves of the joys
of social life? There is no necessity of having conscience before the
criminal code, or of fearing it: low girls, soldiers' wives who throw
their children into ponds or wells, these certainly must be put
in prison. But with us the suppression is effected opportunely and
properly.
"
Thus we passed two years more. The method prescribed by the rascals had
evidently succeeded. My wife had grown stouter and handsomer. It was the
beauty of the end of summer. She felt it, and paid much attention to her
person. She had acquired that provoking beauty that stirs men. She was
in all the brilliancy of the wife of thirty years, who conceives no
children, eats heartily, and is excited. The very sight of her was
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