"It is selfishness, or the passion for material comfort, madame; a passion that can be translated by a trivial and very significant word,—money."
"And how will you utilise the excessive love of money in the development of this excessive and threatening virtue, of which you have drawn such an exaggerated picture that I am still quite overcome?" said Lord Falmouth.
"Just as they do in your country, monsieur, by punishing every infraction of duty by an enormous fine. How else can it be done? In our epoch of materialism we no longer fear anything except that which touches our daily life, our pocket; this being the case, the system of fines applied to the maintenance of good morals will certainly be the most powerful social lever of the period. For instance, imagine that a confirmed, inexorable moralist was determined to put a stop, suddenly and brutally, to those weaknesses that society pardons,—a man entirely devoted to his sense of duty, or, if you like it better, take a man who is very ugly, very tiresome, and consequently very envious of certain charming sins that he has never been lucky enough to commit, but that he is determined to exterminate,—suppose that this blood-thirsty moralist is a legislator, and that one day in the halls of state he discloses a most deplorable state of affairs, and then demands and obtains, after some discussion, from the majority, whom you can, without any great stretch of imagination, suppose to consist of men who are also very ugly, old, and tiresome, the passage of a bill organising a secret police, destined to ferret out and unmask every act that threatens private life: imagine that finally a law is promulgated, which punishes by a fine of fifty thousand francs the tender crime whose victims fill our tribunals, and that the fine shall be doubled in case of a second arrest. This fine is not to be offered in the shameful form of damages to the injured party, but employed, let us suppose, in the education of abandoned children,—so that the superfluous would help the necessitous."
"And do you believe, monsieur," cried the marquise, "that the ignoble fear of paying a given sum would render the majority of men less attentive, less devoted to women?"
"I believe it so firmly, madame, that I can give you an excellent sketch of the two very different aspects of a salon, filled with the same persons, on the day before and the day after the promulgation of such a law.
"The day before you would see all the men smiling, expansive, charming, using their softest tones and tenderest looks to prove by every grace of look and accent the amorous principles of such logic as this: 'Whatever is pleasant is right.' 'Discretion is the only virtue.' 'Your heart was not consulted when they gave you your tyrant.' 'There are certain feelings that are inevitably sympathetic.''Your soul longs for its twin sister, take my soul.' (This piece of a soul, by the way, has enormous moustaches, or side-whiskers.) 'When it has reached a certain stage, guilty love becomes a sacred duty,' etc. I will excuse you, madame, from hearing a variety of other excellent reasonings, which generally do not deceive those that hear them, any more than those that give utterance to them.
"But on the evening after the promulgation of this terrible law, when there would be danger of the fine, what a difference! As all those pretty paradoxes of night before last might end, after all, in the payment of a heavy sum, and as that sum would reduce by just so much the luxury and comfort which are the necessities of an essentially material life, while love is only a delightful superfluity, you would see all the men suddenly become serious, pompous, dignified, frightened at the slightest attempt at conversation from a woman, if she was at all removed from the rest of the company; prudish and scared as schoolgirls before their head teacher, you would hear them cry out aloud so that every one could hear them, and in their most solemn voice, the voice that they use when they make political speeches, refuse requests, and later scold their wives and children with: 'After all, good morals are the foundation of society.' 'We must draw the line somewhere!' 'There are some duties that a gallant man ought to respect.' 'I had a mother once.' 'I shall be a father some day.' 'There is no real pleasure except in the satisfaction of conscience,' etc. For I will spare you, madame, a quantity of other formulas more or less moral, which, as soon as the question of a fine came up, might be translated thus: 'Ladies, I know that you are all as charming as possible; but I love my opera box, my house, my table, my stable, my gaming, my journey to the summer resorts or to Italy, my pictures, my bric-à-brac; shall I risk all of these for a few moments of felicity, as rare as it is intoxicating? No!'"
"It is infamous," said the marquise; "out of a hundred men, not one would answer in this way."
"Permit me, madame, to be of an absolutely opposite opinion. I believe the men of our day are pitilessly attached to material comfort, and willing to sacrifice everything else to it, and, more than all the rest, that which is called love."
"You believe that?" said Madame de Pënâfiel with profound astonishment. "You believe that? And how old might you be, monsieur?"