From the clash of two contrary forces there arises a decomposition of movements, a transformation of energies; and this phenomenon occurs in love when, pure, virginal, powerful and hardly issued from the hot bosom of nature, it finds the sharp rocks of social obstacles, and, like a wave, breaks against them, raises a mass of foam and withdraws dragging away a congeries of stones, splinters and mud scattered by the turbulent clashing of so many forces and resistances. Would fortune that in that first shock love should suffer nothing but sorrow! Tears have blessed thousands of loves and bathed them in a sweet dew; very few have they killed. But in the dashing of the first love against the cruel rock of social resistances many new forces, all of them ruthless, spring from the decomposition of the two contrary motions, and a thousand compromises with conscience stain in its swaddling clothes the new-born love, humiliating it under the shame of an original sin. The very first compromise with his own conscience on the part of a pure and enamored youth, when prevented by society from being monogamous, is that of decomposing love into sentiment and voluptuousness; thus he strives to preserve his heart pure and to erect one temple only, while sacrifices are offered to lust on the hundred altars of the wandering Venus. And still this decomposition of love seems to the most refined and most virtuous lovers a very wise move, a miracle of art, the ideal of morality coupled with the most urgent needs of a heart and senses; and after a few skirmishes and lamentations every one adapts himself to this compromise and tries to make himself as comfortable as possible, as though in an uncomfortable carriage in which one must journey for a long time. The most considerate, the most virtuous lovers, however, are continually looking forward to the fortunate day when all hypocrisy will be eliminated and physical and moral loves united will give them the right to build a nest in which sentiment and voluptuousness will keep faithful company. And in the meantime we just go on between a reticence and a lie; the heart to the wife of another, the body to the courtesan.