CHAPTER 24"We are going to bed," Clement finally says to me; "that hasperhaps been rather too much for you, Therese, and certainly notenough for me; one never tires of this mania notwithstanding thefact it is a very pale image of what one should really like to do;ah, dear girl! you have no idea to what lengths this depravityleads us, you cannot imagine the drunkenness into which it plungesus, the violent commotion in the electrical fluid which resultsfrom the irritation produced by the suffering of the object thatserves our passions; how one is needled by its agonies! The desireto increase them... 'tis, I know, the reef upon which the fantasyis doomed to wreck, but is this peril to be dreaded by him whocares not a damn for anything?" Although Clement's mind was stillin the grip of enthusia
