“The desire for women that you catch in Paris, isn’t it rather the effect of that very enervation which Gruby is the sworn enemy of than a sign of vigour? So you feel this desire disappearing at the very moment you are yourself again. The root of the evil lies in the constitution itself, in the fatal weakening of families from generation to generation, and besides that, in one’s unwholesome job and the dreary life in Paris. The root of the evil certainly lies there, and there’s no cure for it.”
