"Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of

mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens--another of those

steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You

already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated.

She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara;

both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in

a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her

in three months. Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless,

and unimpressible: not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give

her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business, and

so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are

not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now. You think me

an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don't you?"

"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir.

Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first

with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter

of course."

"It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion

of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a

mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often

by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly

with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the

time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara."

I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain

inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the

teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as--under any

pretext--with any justification--through any temptation--to become

the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with

the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I

did not give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel

it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve

me as aid in the time of trial.

"Now, Jane, why don't you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You

are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me

come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses--in a harsh,

bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life--

corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and

especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion

of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream),

recalled by business, I came back to England.




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