"They do write,"
he says, "... but it is all either a lie, or theatrical effects
for children of tender years, or else a cunning symbolism,
comprehensible only to the sages of the future. But the life
itself no one as yet has touched...
"But the material here is in reality tremendous, downright
crushing, terrible... And not at all terrible are the loud phrases
about the traffic in women's flesh, about the white slaves, about
prostitution being a corroding fester of large cities, and so on,
and so on... an old hurdy-gurdy of which all have tired! No,
horrible are the everyday, accustomed trifles; these business-
like, daily, commercial reckonings; this thousand-year-old science
of amatory practice; this prosaic usage, determined by the ages.
In these unnoticeable nothings are completely dissolved such
feelings as resentment, humiliation, shame. There remains a dry
profession, a contract, an agreement, a well-nigh honest petty
trade, no better, no worse than, say, the trade in groceries. Do
you understand, gentlemen, that all the horror is in just this--
that there is no horror! Bourgeois work days--and that is all.
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