“Admirable indeed, sir,” responded my good master, adjusting his spectacles, “and at that rate every statue will soon have its leaf. But (seeing that objects have no meaning for us save by association of ideas) in placing vine-leaves and fig-leaves on statues, you transfer the quality of indecency to the leaves; so that one can no longer see vine or fig-tree on the countryside without conceiving them as sheltering some indecency; and it is no small sin, my good sir, to fix immodesty on these innocent plants. Allow me to tell you further that it is a dangerous thing to make a study, as you do, of everything that may cause disquietude and uneasiness to the flesh, without reflecting that if a given shape be such as to scandalise souls, each of us who bears the original of that shape will scandalise himself, except he be less than a man—a thing one does not like to contemplate.” “Monsieur,” responded the aged Nicodème, rather heatedly, “I gather from the language you hold that you are a libertine and a debauchee.” “Monsieur,” said my good master, “I am a Christian, and as for living in debauchery, I could not think of such a thing, having enough to do to gain my daily bread, wine, and tobacco. Such as you see me, Monsieur, I know no orgy but the silent orgies of meditation, and the only feast I sit down to is the feast of the Muses. But I, as a wise man, consider that it is a bad thing to outbid in shamefacedness the teachings of the Catholic religion, which on this subject allows a good deal of liberty, and adjusts itself easily to people’s customs and prejudices. I take you to be tainted with Calvinism and to be leaning to the heresy of iconoclasm. For, in truth, one does not know whether your zeal will not go so far as to burn images of God and the saints, from hatred of the humanity evident in them. Such words as modesty, decency, and shame, which come so readily from your mouth, have as a matter of fact no precise and constant meaning. Custom and nice feeling can alone define them with truth and moderation. I only acknowledge poets, artists, and pretty women, as judges in these delicate matters. What an extraordinary notion, to set up a row of attorneys in judgment on Grace and Pleasure!” “But, Monsieur,” replied the aged Nicodème, “we have nothing to do with Smiles or Graces, still less with images of God and the saints, and you are maliciously fastening a quarrel on us. We are decent people, who wish to turn aside the eyes of our sons from improper sights, and one knows well enough what is decent and what is not. Do you wish, Monsieur l’Abbé, that our young people should be open to every temptation of the streets?”