ut when the mind gives perfect equilibrium to those
propensities, the sensations derived from them become true enjoyment, an
unaccountable feeling which gives us what is called happiness, and which
we experience without being able to describe it.

The voluptuous man who reasons, disdains greediness, rejects with
contempt lust and lewdness, and spurns the brutal revenge which is caused
by a first movement of anger: but he is dainty, and satisfies his
appetite only in a manner in harmony with his nature and his tastes; he
is amorous, but he enjoys himself with the object of his love only when
he is certain that she will share his enjoyment, which can never be the
case unless their love is mutual; if he is offended, he does not care for
revenge until he has calmly considered the best means to enjoy it fully.
If he is sometimes more cruel than necessary, he consoles himself with
the idea that he has acted under the empire of reason; and his revenge is
sometimes so noble that he finds it in forgiveness. Those three
operations are the work of the soul which, to procure enjoyment for
itself, becomes the agent of our passions. We sometimes suffer from
hunger in order to enjoy better the food which will allay it; we delay
the amorous enjoyment for the sake of making it more intense, and we put
off the moment of our revenge in order to mike it more certain. It is
true, however, that one may die from indigestion, that we allow ourselves
to be often deceived in love, and that the creature we want to annihilate
often escapes our revenge; but perfection cannot be attained in anything,
and those are risks which we run most willingly.

CHAPTER XVII

Continuation of the Last Chapter--My First Assignation With
M. M.--Letter From C. C.--My Second Meeting With the Nun At
My Splendid Casino In Venice I Am Happy

There is nothing, there can be nothing, dearer to a thinking being than
life; yet the voluptuous men, those who try to enjoy it in the best
manner, are the men who practise with the greatest perfection the
difficult art of shortening life, of driving it fast. They do not mean to
make it shorter, for they would like to perpetuate it in the midst of
pleasure, but they wish enjoyment to render its course insensible; and
they are right, provided they do not fail in fulfilling their duties. Man
must not, however, imagine that he has no other duties but those which
gratify his senses; he would be greatly mistaken,