During the day he thought several more times of Rose. The scenes in the garden and the wood came back into his mind and unnerved him. Then a question posed itself in his mind: Do I love her? But he would not answer. Others presented themselves yet insistently: How shall I draw back. He did not understand. He had no intention of drawing back. Well, then, should the marriage take place? He really didn't know.
"I must have a breathing space. I come back, I have arrears of work and friends to sec. Everything must be done properly. For the little dryad of the Robinvast wood, there is only one thing in the world and that is I. For me there are a dozen things, a thousand...."
He rang the bell, gave unnecessary orders, asked futile questions. It was only at about three o'clock that he opened the door to an image which had been prowling round his head since the morning: Gratienne was coming to pick him up at four and they were to go to St. Cloud. That was one of his great pleasures.
"Will Rose be able to understand these profoundly civilised landscapes, this well-tamed nature, these hills with their harmonious lines like the body of a lovely sleeping woman?"
M. Hervart felt in very good form. The uncomfortable symptoms which had disquieted him in the country had disappeared since his return.... He found in Gratienne a favourable reception and to the realisation of his desires. She knew his tastes and she shared them. In short, he promised himself several delightful hours after this familiar outing. However a very disagreeable surprise was in store for him. After the preludes of passion, when his whole being was bent on realisation, M. Hervart had a moment of weakness. Gratienne's skilful tenderness had certainly overcome it, the self-esteem of both parties had been preserved.
In the morning, he thought of Stendhal, carried the volume to his office and read chapter LX of L'Amour with the greatest attention. He found nothing there to enlighten him. Gratienne, certainly, did not inspire, and indeed no woman had ever inspired, in him that kind of ill-balanced passion in which the body recoils, alarmed at its own boldness.
"Stendhal no doubt had discovered one of the reasons for an absence of apropos, but he had found only one. And besides, all this doesn't belong to psychology; it is physiology. There's nothing but physiology. Bouret will tell me about it."
Bouret, who knew M. Hervart's life, made him relate, point by point, the whole history of his last year. Finally he said: "Well it's very simple."
Bouret employed no circumlocutions. He was clear and brutal. After a moment's reflection he continued!
"The inevitable accompaniment of Platonic love is secret vice. Simple flirtation leads to the same consequences. Double flirtation is secret vice à deux, discreet and hypocritical. Triple flirtation, if it exists, would still be secret vice à deux, but avowed, frank. It would perhaps be less dangerous than double flirtation, which is simply realisation artificially provoked. No virility can stand that. Women, for another reason less easy to explain, are destroyed by it just like men. Men are fools. If you want a woman, take a woman and behave like a fine animal fulfilling its functions! And above all beware of young girls. Young girls have destroyed the virility of more men than all the Messalinas in the world. Sentimental conversations, furtive kisses and hand-squeezings are almost always accompanied in an impressionable man, especially if he has several months or even a few weeks of chastity behind him, by loss of vigor. Then do you know what happens? One gets used to it. I believe that our organs, despite their close interdependence, have a certain autonomy. The first thing you must do is to preserve perfect chastity for an indefinite period. Active occupations, fatigue; you must procure sheer brute sleep. Then, in two or three months make a few direct attempts, absolutely direct. If that's all right, you must marry and set your mind to producing children. There."