Читать книгу A Plea for Monogamy онлайн

11 страница из 53

The conflict between the individual and society is just as great whether a man takes it out in himself through a neurosis or gives up the neurosis and takes a prostitute or a regular mistress, neither of which has the sanction of society. In the case of many neurotics the cure is worse than the disease simply because the social pressure becomes clearer to the individual if he actually does, even in secret, the things he had before only unconsciously wished. For him the conflict not only is not resolved but is worse, for if like the majority of neurotics he is of a more sensitive type than the average person the contrast between his actions and the implicit demands of his environment will be all the greater. He will be doing in reality the very thing he unconsciously desired but feared to do.

And yet not the same thing after all. For unless the mistress is of that rare and extraordinary type of Mlle. Drouet who supplied for Victor Hugo what he would have much preferred to get from his wife, had she been spiritually able to give it, there will be, for the unfortunately advised neurotic, another conflict not on an ethical but on an intellectual and spiritual plane.