For not being able to think of anything but women, I could not help turning over in my head, day and night, all the ideas of debauchery, of false love and of feminine treason, with which my mind was filled.

For me to possess a woman was to love her; I thought of nothing but women, but I believed no more in the possibility of true love.
All this suffering inspired me with a sort of rage.

At times I was tempted to imitate the monks and starve my body in order to conquer my senses; at times I felt like rushing out into the street to throw myself at the feet of the first woman I met and vow to her eternal love.
God is my witness that I did all in my power to cure myself.

Preoccupied from the first with the idea that the society of men was the haunt of vice and hypocrisy, where all were like my mistress, I resolved to separate myself from them and live in complete isolation.

I resumed my neglected studies, and plunged into history, poetry, and anatomy.