But before talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived formerly, and what ideas I had of conjugal life.

I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,--that is, in debauchery.

And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.
"The idea that I had of my morality arose from the fact that in my family there was no knowledge of those special debaucheries, so common in the surroundings of land-owners, and also from the fact that my father and my mother did not deceive each other.

In consequence of this, I had built from childhood a dream of high and poetical conjugal life.

My wife was to be perfection itself, our mutual love was to be incomparable, the purity of our conjugal life stainless.