but are false at heart.

"Above all, do not accuse women of being what they are; we have made them
thus, undoing the work of nature.

"Nature, who thinks of everything, made the virgin for love; but with the
first child her bosom loses form, her beauty its freshness. Woman is made
for motherhood. Man would perhaps abandon her, disgusted by the loss of
beauty; but his child clings to him and weeps. Behold the family, the
human law; everything that departs from this law is monstrous.

"Civilization thwarts the ends of nature. In our cities, according to our
customs, the virgin destined by nature for the open air, made to run in
the sunlight; to admire the nude wrestlers, as in Lacedemonia, to choose
and to love, is shut up in close confinement and bolted in. Meanwhile she
hides romance under her cross; pale and idle, she fades away and loses,
in the silence of the nights, that beauty which oppresses her and needs
the open air. Then she is suddenly snatched from this solitude, knowing
nothing, loving nothing, desiring everything; an old woman instructs her,
a mysterious word is whispered in her ear, and she is thrown into the
arms of a stranger. There you have marriage, that is to say, the
civilized family.

"A child is born. This poor creature has lost her beauty and she has
never loved. The child is brought to her with the words: 'You are a
mother.' She replies: 'I am not a mother; take that child to some woman
who can nurse it. I can not.' Her husband tells her that she is right,
that her child would be disgusted with her. She receives careful
attention and is soon cured of the disease of maternity. A month later
she may be seen at the Tuileries, at the ball, at the opera; her child is
at Chaillot, at Auxerre; her husband with another woman. Then young men
speak to her of love, of devotion, of sympathy, of all that is in the
heart. She takes one, draws him to her bosom; he dishonors her and
returns to the Bourse. She cries all night, but discovers that tears make
her eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles
her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted,
with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with
raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she
remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life,
she teaches him to eschew love.

"That is woman as we have made her; such are your mistresses. But