Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/145

 some sensuality towards her, I think I would even have gone so far as to marry her, rather than become a sodomite, and have an unfaithful man who did not care for me, as my lover.

"Anyhow, I asked myself, might I not feel some slight pleasure with her, just enough to quiet my senses, to lull my maddened brain to rest?

"And yet which was the greater evil of the two, the one of seducing a poor girl to ruin her, and making her the mother of a poor unhappy child, or that of yielding to the passion which was shattering my body and my mind?

"Our honourable society winks at the first peccadillo, and shudders with horror at the second, and as our society is composed of honourable men, I suppose the honourable men which make up our virtuous society are right.

"What private reasons they have to make them think in this way, I really do not know.

"In the exasperated state in which I was, life was intolerable, I could not bear it any longer.

"Weary and worn out by a sleepless night, with my blood parched by excitement and by