or. And I did the same.

"The felicities of the honeymoon do not exist. On the contrary, it is a
period of uneasiness, of shame, of pity, and, above all, of ennui,--of
ferocious ennui. It is something like the feeling of a youth when he is
beginning to smoke. He desires to vomit; he drivels, and swallows his
drivel, pretending to enjoy this little amusement. The vice of marriage
. . ."

"What! Vice?" I said. "But you are talking of one of the most natural
things."

"Natural!" said he. "Natural! No, I consider on the contrary that it
is against nature, and it is I, a perverted man, who have reached this
conviction. What would it be, then, if I had not known corruption? To
a young girl, to every unperverted young girl, it is an act extremely
unnatural, just as it is to children. My sister married, when very
young, a man twice her own age, and who was utterly corrupt. I remember
how astonished we were the night of her wedding, when, pale and covered
with tears, she fled from her husband, her whole body trembling, saying
that for nothing in the world would she tell what he wanted of her.

"You say natural? It is natural to eat; that is a pleasant, agreeable
function, which no one is ashamed to perform from the time of his birth.
No, it is not natural. A pure young girl wants one thing,--children.
Children, yes, not a lover." . . .

"But," said I, with astonishment, "how would the human race continue?"

"But what is the use of its continuing?" he rejoined, vehemently.

"What! What is the use? But then we should not exist."

"And why is it necessary that we should exist?"

"Why, to live, to be sure."

"And why live? The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists,
say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are right
in this sense,--that human happiness is coincident with the annihilation
of 'Self.' Only they do not express themselves well. They say that
Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings, that its
object should be to destroy itself. Now the object of Humanity cannot
be to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the result
of activity. The object of activity cannot consist in suppressing its
consequences. The object of Man, as of Humanity, is happiness, and, to
attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry out. This law consists
in the union of beings. This union is thwarted by the passions. And
that is why, if the passions disappear, the union will