If poor Edward was
dangerous because of the chastity of his expressions--and they say
that is always the hall-mark of a libertine--what about myself? For
I solemnly avow that not only have I never so much as hinted at
an impropriety in my conversation in the whole of my days; and
more than that, I will vouch for the cleanness of my thoughts and
the absolute chastity of my life. At what, then, does it all work out?
Is the whole thing a folly and a mockery? Am I no better than a
eunuch or is the proper man--the man with the right to
existence--a raging stallion forever neighing after his neighbour's
womankind?
I don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is
so nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex,
what is there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other
personal contacts, associations, and activities? Or are we meant to
act on impulse alone? It is all a darkness.
II
I DON'T know how it is best to put this thing down--whether it
would be better to try and tell the story from the beginning, as if it
were a story; or whether to tell it from this distance of time, as it
reached me from the lips of Leonora or from those of Edward
himself.
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