'If you had ever sat in the confessional you would not say all women,' remarked the Abbé. 'You do not know what a Christian woman is, and of what sacrifices she is capable.' 'What almost all women are,' repeated Claude, with a touch of irony, and began to relate what he knew of René's story, drawing a fairly exact portrait of Suzanne with the aid of many psychological expressions, and speaking of the multiplicity of her person--of a first and a second condition of her 'I.' 'There is in her,' he said, 'a woman who is fond of luxury, and she therefore keeps a lover who can give it her; then there is a woman who is fond of love, and so she takes a young lover; a woman who is fond of respect, and so she lives with a husband whom she treats with consideration. And I will wager that she loves all three--the paying lover, the loving lover, and the protecting husband--but in a different way. Certain natures are so constructed, like the Chinese boxes which contain six or seven others. She is a very complicated animal!' 'Complicated?' said the Abbé, throwing back his head. 'I know you use these words to avoid uttering more simple ones. She is merely an unhappy woman who allows herself to be governed by her senses. All this is filth.' There was a look of profound disgust on his noble face as he uttered these words of brutal simplicity. It was plain that the thought of matters concerning the flesh provoked in him that peculiar repugnance found in priests who have had to struggle hard against a natural inclination for love. His disgust soon made way for a deep melancholy, and he continued his remarks.