there happened that terrible thing that I fell, not because I became a prey to the natural seductions of a certain woman's charms,—no, not a woman had seduced me, but I fell because the people around me saw in the fall either a most lawful function which was very useful to health, or a most natural, and not only pardonable, but even innocent pastime for a young man.
"I did not understand that there was any fall; I simply began to abandon myself to those part pleasures, part necessities, which, so I had been impressed, were peculiar to a certain age, and I abandoned myself to this debauchery, as I had abandoned myself to drinking and smoking. And yet there was something especial and pathetic in this fall. I remember how even then, before I had left the room, I felt sad, so sad that I felt like weeping,—weeping for the loss of my innocence, for my past relation to woman, now for ever lost. Yes, the simple, natural relation to woman was now for ever lost. From that time there no longer was nor could be any pure relation with women. I became what is called a libertine.
"To be a libertine is a physical condition, resembling the condition of a morphine fiend, a drunkard, a smoker. Just as morphine-eaters, drunkards, smokers no longer are normal men, just so a man who has known several women is no longer a normal man, but will for ever be spoiled,—a libertine. Just as drunkards and morphine-eaters may at once be recognized by their faces and by their manner, just so is a libertine. A libertine may restrain himself and struggle, but the simple, pure, the fraternal relations with women will never again exist for him. A libertine may at once be told from the way he looks at a young woman and surveys her. And thus I became a libertine and remained one, and it was this which brought me to ruin."
