Little by little I became aware that Marie was acting much more coolly. There was a sort of aggressive deference in her slightest words, as if she had suddenly realized that I came from a world much superior to her own. I felt she was angry. It did not surprise me that Marie’s affection had passed: everything passes. I merely saw that she was sad; I was naive enough not to guess why. I thought it impossible that she should suspect a certain aspect of my existence; it did not occur to me that she would probably have been less scandalized by it than I was. In the end, other circumstances supervened; I was obliged to move to a humbler house, my room having become too expensive for me. I never saw Marie again. How difficult it is, whatever precautions one takes, not to cause suffering.

I continued to struggle. If virtue consists in a series of efforts, I was irreproachable. I learned the danger of too hasty self-denials; I ceased to believe that perfection lay on the other side of a vow. Wisdom, like life itself, appeared to me to be comprised of continuing progress, of starting over again, of patience. A gradual recovery seemed to me less precarious: like the poor, I was content with miserable small gains. I tried to space out the crises. I indulged in a maniacal calculation of months, weeks, and days. Without admitting it to myself, during these periods of excessive discipline I survived only by looking ahead to the moment when I would allow myself to give in again. I ended by giving in to the first temptation that came along, simply because, for too long, I had forbidden myself to do so. I plotted in advance the timetable for my next weakness; I always gave myself over to it a little too hastily, less out of impatience for this pitiful happiness than to avoid the horror of waiting for its arrival and of enduring it. I shall spare you the recital of the precautions I took against myself; they now seem to me more demeaning than my faults. At first I thought it was important to avoid the opportunities for sin; I soon recognized that our actions have only the significance of symptoms: it is our nature we have to change. I was afraid of what might happen; I was afraid of my body; I ended by recognizing that our instincts communicate themselves to our soul and penetrate us completely. At that point there was no longer any refuge for me. In even the most innocent thoughts I discovered the beginnings of temptation. I did not find a single one that remained healthy for long; they seemed to go bad within me; and my soul, as I came to know it better, disgusted me as much as my body. Certain times were especially dangerous: weekends, the beginning of months (perhaps because I had a little more money—and I had acquired the habit of paid encounters). There are, my dear, such wretched reasons. I also feared the eves of holidays, their idleness, their sadness for those who live alone. I shut myself up on those days: I paced back and forth, tired of seeing my image reflected in the mirror, hating that mirror which inflicted my own presence on me. Dusk began to fill the room. Shadows fell upon things like an additional layer of dust. I did not close the window, because I wanted air; the noises from outside tired me so that I could not think. I was sitting down; I endeavored to fix my mind on some idea, but one idea always leads to another; and one does not know where that will end up. It seemed better to move, to walk about. There is nothing wrong with going out at dusk; and yet it was a defeat which looked forward to another. I loved that hour when the fever of cities throbbed. I shall not describe the hallucinatory quest for pleasure, the potential mortifications, the bitterness of a moral humiliation much worse than the sin itself when no relief comes to compensate it. I shall pass over the somnambulism of desire, the abrupt resolution which sweeps away all others, the alacrity of a body which, finally, no longer obeys anything but itself. We often describe the happiness of a soul which disencumbers itself of its body; there are moments in life when the body disencumbers itself of the soul.