Coming from a ball, for instance, where they have
danced with a modest girl, they seek the company of bad characters, and
spend the night in riotous feasting. The last words they addressed to a
beautiful and virtuous woman are still on their lips; they repeat them
and burst into laughter. Shall I say it? Do they not raise, for some
pieces of silver, the vesture of chastity, that robe so full of mystery,
that seems to respect the being it embellishes and surrounds without
touching? What idea can they have of the world? They are like comedians
in the greenroom. Who, more than they, is skilled in that research at the
bottom of things, in that groping, profound and impious? See how they
speak of everything; always in terms the most barren, the most crude and
abject; such words appear true to them; all the rest is only parade,
convention, prejudice. Let them tell a story, let them recount some
experience, they will always use the same dirty and material expression,
always the letter, always death! They do not say "That woman loved me;"
they say: "I have possessed that woman;" they do not say: "I love;" they
say: "I desire;" they never say: "If God wills;" they say: "If I will." I
do not know what they think of themselves and such monologues as these.
Hence, of a necessity, either idleness or curiosity; for while they
strive to find what there is of evil, they do not understand that others
still believe in the good.
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