of that, Mr. Attorney, and were simply frightened to find such
words as _corset, clothing which falls off_, etc.; and you attach
yourself to these three or four words, such as corset and falling
clothing. Do you wish me to show you that corsets can appear in a
classic book, a very classic book? I shall give myself the pleasure of
so doing, presently.

"She undressed herself ..." [ah! Mr. Government Attorney, how badly you
have understood this passage!] "she undressed hastily [poor thing],
tearing off the thin laces of her corset that nestled around her hips
like a gliding snake; then pale, serious, and without speaking, with one
movement she threw herself upon his breast with a long shudder.... There
was upon that brow covered with cold drops ... in the strain of those
arms something vague and dreary...."

We must ask here where the lascivious colour is? and where is the severe
colour? and ask if the senses of the young girl into whose hands this
book might fall, could be aroused, excited--as she might by reading a
classic of classics, which I shall cite presently, and which has been
reprinted a thousand times without any prosecution, public or royal,
following it. Is there anything analogous in what I am going to read
you? Is there not, on the contrary, a horror of vice that this
"something dreary glides in between them to separate them?" Let us
continue, I pray:

"He did not dare to question her; but, seeing her so skilled, she must
have passed, he thought, through every experience of suffering and of
pleasure. What had once charmed now frightened him a little. Besides,
he rebelled against his absorption, daily more marked by her
personality. He begrudged Emma this constant victory. He even strove
not to love her; then, when he heard the creaking of her boots, he
turned coward, like drunkards at the sight of strong drinks."

What is lascivious there?

And then, take the last paragraph:

"One day, when they had parted early and she was returning alone along
the boulevard, she saw the walls of her convent; then she sat down on a
form in the shade of the elm-trees. How calm that time had been! How she
longed for the ineffable sentiments of love that she had tried to figure
to herself out of books! The first month of her marriage, her rides in
the wood, the viscount that waltzed, and Lagardy singing, all repassed
before her eyes. And Leon suddenly appeared to her as far off as the
others.

"'Yet I love him,' she