“Strange in what? According to all the doctrines2 of the Church, the world will have an end. Science teaches the same fatal conclusions. Why, then, is it strange that the same thing should result from moral Doctrine1? ‘Let those who can, contain,’ said Christ. And I take this passage literally3, as it is written. That morality may exist between people in their worldly relations, they must make complete chastity their object. In tending toward this end, man humiliates4 himself. When he shall reach the last degree of humiliation5, we shall have moral marriage.
“But if man, as in our society, tends only toward physical love, though he may clothe it with pretexts6 and the false forms of marriage, he will have only permissible7 debauchery, he will know only the same immoral8 life in which I fell and caused my wife to fall, a life which we call the honest life of the family. Think what a perversion9 of ideas must arise when the happiest situation of man, liberty, chastity, is looked upon as something wretched and ridiculous. The highest ideal, the best situation of woman, to be pure, to be a vestal, a virgin10, excites fear and laughter in our society. How many, how many young girls sacrifice their purity to this Moloch of opinion by marrying rascals11 that they may not remain virgins,— that is, superiors! Through fear of finding themselves in that ideal state, they ruin themselves.
“But I did not understand formerly12, I did not understand that the words of the Gospel, that ‘he who looks upon a woman to lust13 after her has already committed adultery,’ do not apply to the wives of others, but notably14 and especially to our own wives. I did not understand this, and I thought that the honeymoon15 and all of my acts during that period were virtuous16, and that to satisfy one’s desires with his wife is an eminently17 chaste18 thing. Know, then, that I consider these departures, these isolations, which young married couples arrange with the permission of their parents, as nothing else than a license19 to engage in debauchery.
“I saw, then, in this nothing bad or shameful20, and, hoping for great joys, I began to live the honeymoon. And very certainly none of these joys followed. But I had faith, and was determined21 to have them, cost what they might. But the more I tried to secure them, the less I succeeded. All this time I felt anxious, ashamed, and weary. Soon I began to suffer. I believe that on the third or fourth day I found my wife sad and asked her the reason. I began to embrace her, which in my opinion was all that she could desire. She put me away with her hand, and began to weep.
“At what? She could not tell me. She was filled with sorrow, with anguish22. Probably her tortured nerves had suggested to her the truth about the baseness of our relations, but she found no words in which to say it. I began to question her; she answered that she missed her absent mother. It seemed to me that she was not telling the truth. I sought to console her by maintaining silence in regard to her parents. I did not imagine that she felt herself simply overwhelmed, and that her parents had nothing to do with her sorrow. She did not listen to me, and I accused her of caprice. I began to laugh at her gently. She dried her tears, and began to reproach me, in hard and wounding terms, for my selfishness and cruelty.
“I looked at her. Her whole face expressed hatred23, and hatred of me. I cannot describe to you the fright which this sight gave me. ‘How? What?’ thought I, ‘love is the unity24 of souls, and here she hates me? Me? Why? But it is impossible! It is no longer she!’
“I tried to calm her. I came in conflict with an immovable and cold hostility25, so that, having no time to reflect, I was seized with keen irritation26. We exchanged disagreeable remarks. The impression of this first quarrel was terrible. I say quarrel, but the term is inexact. It was the sudden discovery of the abyss that had been dug between us. Love was exhausted27 with the satisfaction of sensuality. We stood face to face in our true light, like two egoists trying to procure28 the greatest possible enjoyment29, like two individuals trying to mutually exploit each other.
“So what I called our quarrel was our actual situation as it appeared after the satisfaction of sensual desire. I did not realize that this cold hostility was our normal state, and that this first quarrel would soon be drowned under a new flood of the intensest sensuality. I thought that we had disputed with each other, and had become reconciled, and that it would not happen again. But in this same honeymoon there came a period of satiety31, in which we ceased to be necessary to each other, and a new quarrel broke out.
“It became evident that the first was not a matter of chance. ‘It was inevitable,’ I thought. This second quarrel stupefied me the more, because it was based on an extremely unjust cause. It was something like a question of money,— and never had I haggled32 on that score; it was even impossible that I should do so in relation to her. I only remember that, in answer to some remark that I made, she insinuated33 that it was my intention to rule her by means of money, and that it was upon money that I based my sole right over her. In short, something extraordinarily34 stupid and base, which was neither in my character nor in hers.
“I was beside myself. I accused her of indelicacy. She made the same accusation35 against me, and the dispute broke out. In her words, in the expression of her face, of her eyes, I noticed again the hatred that had so astonished me before. With a brother, friends, my father, I had occasionally quarrelled, but never had there been between us this fierce spite. Some time passed. Our mutual30 hatred was again concealed36 beneath an access of sensual desire, and I again consoled myself with the reflection that these scenes were reparable faults.
“But when they were repeated a third and a fourth time, I understood that they were not simply faults, but a fatality38 that must happen again. I was no longer frightened, I was simply astonished that I should be precisely39 the one to live so uncomfortably with my wife, and that the same thing did not happen in other households. I did not know that in all households the same sudden changes take place, but that all, like myself, imagine that it is a misfortune exclusively reserved for themselves alone, which they carefully conceal37 as shameful, not only to others, but to themselves, like a bad disease.
“That was what happened to me. Begun in the early days, it continued and increased with characteristics of fury that were ever more pronounced. At the bottom of my soul, from the first weeks, I felt that I was in a trap, that I had what I did not expect, and that marriage is not a joy, but a painful trial. Like everybody else, I refused to confess it (I should not have confessed it even now but for the outcome). Now I am astonished to think that I did not see my real situation. It was so easy to perceive it, in view of those quarrels, begun for reasons so trivial that afterwards one could not recall them.
“Just as it often happens among gay young people that, in the absence of jokes, they laugh at their own laughter, so we found no reasons for our hatred, and we hated each other because hatred was naturally boiling up in us. More extraordinary still was the absence of causes for reconciliation40.
“Sometimes words, explanations, or even tears, but sometimes, I remember, after insulting words, there tacitly followed embraces and declarations. Abomination! Why is it that I did not then perceive this baseness?
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1
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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humiliates
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| 使蒙羞，羞辱，使丢脸( humiliate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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pretexts
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| n.借口，托辞( pretext的名词复数 ) | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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9
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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12
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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24
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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28
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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haggled
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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35
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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36
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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38
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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39
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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