not well to pity them? You pity the blind man who has never seen
the daylight, the deaf who has never heard the harmonies of
nature, the dumb who has never found a voice for his soul, and,
under a false cloak of shame, you will not pity this blindness of
heart, this deafness of soul, this dumbness of conscience, which
sets the poor afflicted creature beside herself and makes her, in
spite of herself, incapable of seeing what is good, of bearing
the Lord, and of speaking the pure language of love and faith.

Hugo has written Marion Delorme, Musset has written Bernerette,
Alexandre Dumas has written Fernande, the thinkers and poets of
all time have brought to the courtesan the offering of their
pity, and at times a great man has rehabilitated them with his
love and even with his name. If I insist on this point, it is
because many among those who have begun to read me will be ready
to throw down a book in which they will fear to find an apology
for vice and prostitution; and the author's age will do
something, no doubt, to increase this fear. Let me undeceive
those who think thus, and let them go on reading, if nothing but
such a fear hinders them.

I am quite simply convinced of a certain principle, which is: For
the woman whose education has not taught her what is right, God
almost always opens two ways which lead thither the ways of
sorrow and of love. They are hard; those who walk in them walk
with bleeding feet and torn hands, but they also leave the
trappings of vice upon the thorns of the wayside, and reach the
journey's end in a nakedness which is not shameful in the sight
of the Lord.