“And do not ask me, Christians, in what way this great change of pleasure into punishment will come about.  The thing is proved by the Scriptures.  It is Truth who has said it, it is the All-Powerful who has made it so.  And sometimes, if you will look at the nature of the passions to which you abandon your heart, you will easily comprehend that they may become an intolerable punishment.  They all have in themselves cruel pain, disgust and bitterness.  They all have an infinity which is angered by not being able to be satisfied.  There are transports of rage mingled in all of them which degenerates into a kind of fury not less painful than unreasonable.  Love, if I may be permitted so to name it in this guise, has its uncertainties, its violent agitations, its irresolute resolutions and an abyss of jealousies.”

And further: 

“Ah!  What, then, is easier than making of our passions an insupportable pain or sin, when, if we cut out, as is very just, the little sweetness through which they lead us, there is left of them only the cruel disquiet and bitterness with which they abound?  Our sins are against us, our sins are upon us, our sins are in the midst of us; like an arrow piercing our body, an insupportable weight upon our head, a poison devouring our entrails.”

Is not all that you have just listened to designed to show you the bitterness of passion?  I leave you this book, lined and thumb-marked by the studious man who has found his thought there.  And that man, who has been inspired from a source of this kind, who has written of adultery in the terms you have listened to, is prosecuted for outrage of public and religious morals!

A few lines still upon the woman sinner, and you will see how M. Flaubert, having decided to paint this ardour, understood taking inspiration from this model: 

“But, punished for our error, without being deceived by it, we seek in change the remedy for our scorn; we wander from object to object, and if, finally there is some one who holds us, it is not because we are content with our choice, but because we are bound by our inconstancy.”

* * * * *

“All appeared to her empty, false, disgusting in these creatures:  far from finding there those first charms which her heart had had so much difficulty in defending, she saw in them now only frivolity, danger and vanity.”

* * * * *

“I will not speak of an entanglement of passion; what fears there are that the mystery of it cannot dispel! what measures to keep on the side of well-being and pride! what eyes to shun! what watchers to deceive! what returns to fear from those whom one chooses for their aids and confidants in their passion! what indignities to suffer from him, perhaps, for whom one has sacrificed honour and liberty, and of whom one dare not complain!  To all this, add those cruel moments when passion, less lively, leaves us to choose between falling back upon ourselves and feeling all the humility of our position, and those moments where the heart, born for more solid pleasures, leaves us with our own idols and finds its punishment in its own disgust and inconstancy.  Profane world! if there is in you that felicity that is so much vaunted, favor your adorers with it nor punish them for the faith they have added so lightly to your promises.”