people in contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery
without the slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so to
speak, the conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code. But in
this matter neither of these consciences is struck. There is not a being
in society who blushes at it. Each one practices it,--X, Y, Z, etc. What
is the use of multiplying beggars, and depriving ourselves of the joys
of social life? There is no necessity of having conscience before the
criminal code, or of fearing it: low girls, soldiers' wives who throw
their children into ponds or wells, these certainly must be put
in prison. But with us the suppression is effected opportunely and
properly.

"Thus we passed two years more. The method prescribed by the rascals had
evidently succeeded. My wife had grown stouter and handsomer. It was the
beauty of the end of summer. She felt it, and paid much attention to her
person. She had acquired that provoking beauty that stirs men. She was
in all the brilliancy of the wife of thirty years, who conceives no
children, eats heartily, and is excited. The very sight of her was
enough to frighten one. She was like a spirited carriage-horse that has
long been idle, and suddenly finds itself without a bridle. As for my
wife, she had no bridle, as for that matter, ninety-nine hundredths of
our women have none."



CHAPTER XIX.

Posdnicheff's face had become transformed; his eyes were pitiable; their
expression seemed strange, like that of another being than himself; his
moustache and beard turned up toward the top of his face; his nose was