"And do you catch all whom you please, like that?" "Nearly all." "Oh! So there are some who resist?" "Sometimes." "Why?" "Oh! Why? A man is a Joseph for three reasons. Because he is in love with another woman. Because he is excessively timid, or because he is ... how shall I say it? ... incapable of carrying out the conquest of a woman to the end...." "Oh! my dear!... Do you really believe?..." "I am sure of it.... There are many of this latter class, many, many ... many more than people think. Oh! they look just like everybody else ... they strut like peacocks.... No, when I said peacocks ... I made a mistake, for they could not display themselves." "Oh! my dear...." "As to the timid, they are sometimes unspeakably stupid. They are the sort of men, who ought not to undress themselves, even when they are going to bed alone, when there is a looking-glass in their room. With them, one must be energetic, make use of looks, and squeeze their hands, and even that is useless sometimes. They never know how or where to begin. When one faints in their presence ... as a last resource ... they try to bring you round ... and if you do not recover your senses immediately ... they go and get assistance.
"Those whom I prefer myself, are other women's lovers. I carry them by assault ... at ... at ... at the point of the bayonet, my dear!" "That is all very well, but when there are no men, like here, for instance?" "I find them!" "You find them. But where?" "Everywhere. But that reminds me of my story.
"Now listen. Just two years ago, my husband made me pass the summer on his estate at Bougrolles. There was nothing there ... you know what I mean, nothing, nothing, nothing, whatever! In the neighboring country houses there were a few disgusting boors, who cared for nothing but shooting, and who lived in country houses which had not even a bathroom, men who perspire, go to bed covered with perspiration, and whom it would be impossible to improve, because their principles of life are dirty. Now just guess what I did!" "I cannot possibly." "Ha! ha! ha! I had just been reading a number of George Sand's novels which exalt the man of the people, novels in which the workmen are sublime, and all the men of the world are criminals. In addition to this I had seen Ruy Blas the winter before, and it had struck me very much. Well, one of our farmers had a son, a good-looking young fellow of two and twenty who had studied for a priest, but had left the seminary in disgust. Well, I took him as footman!" "Oh!... And then?... What afterwards?"