"No, once I was free, I found happiness after a few months of trouble and difficulty; but you see, dear, I would have gone to the other end of the world to meet my love! I had no need to journey so far; and this makes me inclined to think that, in our search, we need to be attentive even more than active!"
Roseline murmured, pensively:
"The men say that a certain amount of preliminary experience in love is indispensable ... to them."
My whole soul revolted. Releasing myself from the girl's embrace, I sprang to my feet and faced her:
"But, Rose, isn't it the same with us? And is it right to expect that a woman should rivet her whole existence to the first smile, to the first look, the first word that moves her? Sensible people tell us that marriage is a lottery! By what aberration of the intellect do they come to admit that a being's whole life should be voluntarily subjected to chance? Not one of us would consent to such a degradation, if women in general were not absolutely ignorant! And that is why many, too clear-sighted to submit to a ridiculous law and lacking the courage to infringe it, die without having known the flavour and the goodness of life. Oh, what injustice! Is youth not short enough as it is? Is the circle in which our poor intelligence moves not sufficiently limited? And is it necessary, in addition, to chain us to phantom principles, which falsify nature, disfigure goodness and vilify the miracle of the kiss and the innocence of the flesh?"
I was standing against a tree, a few steps away from Rose; and my hand plucked nervously at the leaves within my reach. The blue sky seemed hypocritical to my eyes, the beauty of the flowers crafty and mocking. I continued, in a tone of conviction:
"It is right that woman should make her own experiments, it is right that she should know men to judge which of them harmonises with her.... It is by constantly encountering alien souls that she will form an idea of what her twin soul should be. Yes, I know that a natural law rejects this morality; and that is why I do not think the woman should give herself until she is quite certain of her choice. It is true that her experiments will be incomplete; the senses will have played but a small part in them, or none at all; but must we not accommodate ourselves to the inevitable? In any case, that woman will indeed be enlightened who, regardless of public opinion, lives freely in the man's company, studying him, observing him and sometimes even loving him!"
Rose listened to me without a word or a movement; only, every now and then, her long, dark lashes, tipped with gold, would flicker for a moment and then droop discreetly on her cool, fresh cheeks. But the thought of her own frailty suggested an objection; and she asked:
"Don't you think that what you propose is difficult for the woman?"
"Oh, yes, difficult and, to many of us, impossible! Through a want of pride, through love or pity, they resign themselves to an act of which their reason does not approve and they wake up unhappy, sometimes for ever.... It is difficult, for the woman who resists appears to the man a sort of monster, abominable and detestable. Ah, there must be no desertion before possession! Because we have given him our lips, we must make him a present of our lives! Because we have consented to certain pleasures, we must, so that he may enjoy a greater, sacrifice our future to him!... In fact, he goes farther and says that woman, when she indulges in those experiments, is following the dictates of a loathsome and mean self-interest. Self-interest, when this conduct entails endless dangers and bitterness! Self-interest, when it demands of us, before all, an absolute contempt of a world to which nearly all are slaves, when it exposes us to insults and suffering and increases the number of our enemies and multiplies the obstacles in our path!... No, that woman is not selfish who, in all good faith, plunges boldly into the adventure at the risk of ruining herself, comes near to a man, thinking that she has found what she is seeking and hoping that love may result. She feels the promptings of her senses and does not resist her heart, but her reason is awake! She will not give herself unless everything that she learns confirms her expectations; she will give herself if she really believes that the happiness of both depends upon it; and the combat that is waged enables her to judge clearly of the quality of their love. She is judge and combatant in one. She lets herself be carried along so that she may have fuller knowledge; and it is not without pain, it is not without love that, at the eleventh hour, she will, if need be, refuse herself."