“That is the reason why I never married.”

She looked at him in astonishment, with the inquisitive gaze of women who wish to know everything, that eye which women have who are no longer very young, in which complicated, and often malicious curiosity is reflected, and she asked: 

“How so?”

“Oh! that is a long story,” he replied; “a rather sad and unpleasant story.”

“My old friends were often surprised at the coldness which suddenly sprang up between one of my best friends, whose Christian name was Julien, and myself.  They could not understand how two such intimate and inseparable friends as we had been could suddenly become almost strangers to one another, and I will tell you the reason of it.

“He and I used to live together at one time.  We were never apart, and the friendship that united us seemed so strong that nothing could break it.

“One evening when he came home, he told me that he was going to get married, and it gave me a shock as if he had robbed me or betrayed me.  When a man’s friend marries, it is all over between them.  The jealous affection of a woman, that suspicious, uneasy, and carnal affection, will not tolerate that sturdy and frank attachment, that attachment of the mind, of the heart, and mutual confidence which exists between two men.

“You see, however great the love may be that unites them, a man and a woman are always strangers in mind and intellect; they remain belligerants, they belong to different races.  There must always be a conqueror and a conquered, a master and a slave; now the one, now the other—­they are never two equals.  They press each other’s hands, those hands trembling with amorous passion; but they never press them with a long, strong, loyal pressure, with that pressure which seems to open hearts and to lay them bare in a burst of sincere, strong, manly affection.  Philosophers of old, instead of marrying and pro-creating children who would abandon them as a consolation for their old age, sought for a good, reliable friend, and grew old with him in that communion of thought which can only exist between men.

“Well, my friend Julien married.  His wife was pretty, charming, a little, light, curly-haired, plump, bright woman, who seemed to worship him; and at first I went but rarely to their house, as I was afraid of interfering with their affection, and afraid of being in their way.  But somehow they attracted me to their house; they were constantly inviting me, and seemed very fond of me.  Consequently, by degrees I allowed myself to be allured by the charm of their life.  I often dined with them, and frequently, when I returned home at night, I thought that I would do as he had done, and get married, as I now found my empty house very dull.

“They seemed very much in love with one another, and were never apart.

“Well, one evening Julien wrote and asked me to go to dinner, and I naturally went.