heart. In the happy days of his youth a man, by the caprice of our
customs, is always lucky; he triumphs over women who are all ready to
be triumphed over and who obey their own desires. One thing after
another--the obstacles created by the laws, the sentiments and natural
defences of women--all engender a mutuality of sensations which
deceives superficial persons as to their future relations in marriage,
where obstacles no longer exist, where the wife submits to love
instead of permitting it, and frequently repulses pleasure instead of
desiring it. Then, the whole aspect of a man's life changes. The
bachelor, who is free and without a care, need never fear repulsion;
in marriage, repulsion is almost certain and irreparable. It may be
possible for a lover to make a woman reverse an unfavorable decision,
but such a change, my dear Paul, is the Waterloo of husbands. Like
Napoleon, the husband is thenceforth condemned to victories which, in
spite of their number, do not prevent the first defeat from crushing
him. The woman, so flattered by the perseverance, so delighted with
the ardor of a lover, calls the same things brutality in a husband.
You, who talk of marrying, and who will marry, have you ever meditated
on the Civil Code? I myself have never muddied my feet in that hovel
of commentators, that garret of gossip, called the Law-school. I have
never so much as opened the Code; but I see its application on the
vitals of society. The Code, my dear Paul, makes woman a ward; it
considers her a child, a minor. Now how must we govern children? By
fear. In that one word, Paul, is the curb of the beast. Now, feel your
own pulse! Have you the strength to play the tyrant,--you, so gentle,
so kind a friend, so confiding; you, at whom I have laughed, but whom
I love, and love enough to reveal to you my science? For this is
science. Yes, it proceeds from a science which the Germans are already
calling Anthropology. Ah! if I had not already solved the mystery of
life by pleasure, if I had not a profound antipathy for those who