He had received some training in moral science, and in replying he derived inspiration from the professors whose classes he had attended.
"It is doubtless a matter of training, religious principles, and an innate feeling which survives even when----" This was not at all what he ought to have replied, for Felicie, shrugging her shoulders, and placing her hands upon her smoothly polished hips, interrupted him sharply: "Well, you are simple! It's because they've got bad figures! Training! Religion! It makes me boil to hear such rubbish! Have I been brought up any worse than other women?
Have I less religion than they have?
Tell me, Robert, how many really well-made women have you ever seen?
Just reckon them up on your fingers.

Yes, there are heaps of women who won't show their shoulders or anything.

Take Fagette; she won't let even women see her undress; when she puts a clean chemise on she holds the old one between her teeth.

Sure enough, I should do the same if I were built as she is!" She relapsed into silence, and, with quiet arrogance, slowly ran the palms of her hands over her sides and her loins, observing proudly: "And the best of it is that there's not too much of me anywhere." She was conscious of the charm imparted to her beauty by the graceful slenderness of her outlines.
Now her head, thrown back on the pillow, was bathed in the masses of her golden tresses, which lay streaming in all directions; her slender body, slightly raised by a pillow slipped beneath her loins, lay motionless at full length; one gleaming leg was extended along the edge of the bed, ending in a sharply chiselled foot like the point of a sword.

The light from the great fire which had been lit in the fireplace gilded her flesh, casting palpitating lights and shadows over her motionless body, clothing it in mystery and splendour, while her outer clothing and her underlinen, lying on the chairs and the carpet, waited, like a docile flock.
She raised herself on her elbow, resting her cheek in her hand.
"You are the first, really you are, I am not lying: the others don't exist." He felt no jealousy in respect of the past; he had no fear of comparisons.