I thought thus, and all the time I marvelled at the nobility of my projects.
"At the same time, I passed ten years of my adult life without hurrying toward marriage, and I led what I called the well-regulated and reasonable life of a bachelor.

I was proud of it before my friends, and before all men of my age who abandoned themselves to all sorts of special refinements.

I was not a seducer, I had no unnatural tastes, I did not make debauchery the principal object of my life; but I found pleasure within the limits of society's rules, and innocently believed myself a profoundly moral being.

The women with whom I had relations did not belong to me alone, and I asked of them nothing but the pleasure of the moment.
"In all this I saw nothing abnormal.

On the contrary, from the fact that I did not engage my heart, but paid in cash, I supposed that I was honest.