wife that you strike; you may attack in her your own children. I
exclude you for a moment from my thought--you and her. It is in
the name of these innocents that I implore you; it is the future,
it is the race that I defend. Listen to me, listen to me! Out
of the twenty households of which I spoke, only fifteen had
children; these fifteen had twenty-eight. Do you know how many
out of these twenty-eight survived? Three, sir! Three out of
twenty-eight! Syphilis is above everything a murderer of
children. Herod reigns in France, and over all the earth, and
begins each year his massacre of the innocents; and if it be not
blasphemy against the sacredness of life, I say that the most
happy are those who have disappeared. Visit our children's
hospitals! We know too well the child of syphilitic parents; the
type is classical; the doctors can pick it out anywhere. Those
little old creatures who have the appearance of having already
lived, and who have kept the stigmata of all out infirmities, of
all our decay. They are the victims of fathers who have married,
being ignorant of what you know--things which I should like to go
and cry out in the public places."

The doctor paused, and then in a solemn voice continued: "I have
told you all, without exaggeration. Think it over. Consider the
pros and cons; sum up the possible misfortunes and the certain
miseries. But disregard yourself, and consider that there are in
one side of the scales the misfortunes of others, and in the
other your own. Take care that you are just."

George was at last overcome. "Very well," he said, "I give way.
I won't get married. I will invent some excuse; I will get a
delay of six months. More than that, I cannot do."