[...] Forgetting that I had been immediately shocked by the middle-class banality of Jacques’ liaison, I blamed myself for having condemned him in the light of purely abstract principles. In fact, I was lost in a dark tunnel, battling against shadows, brandishing the useless sword of an ideal I no longer believed in against the dead past, against Jacques’ own phantasmal shade. But if I abjured this ideal, what other yardstick could I use? In order to protect my love, I swallowed my pride: why should I insist on Jacques being different from other men? The only thing was, if he was the same as all the others – and I knew that in many respects he was inferior to a great number of his sex – what point was there in putting him above the rest? My indulgence was finally turning to indifference.