“But you are talking all the time about physical love. Don’t you acknowledge love based on identity of ideals, on spiritual affinity?” asked the lady.

“Spiritual affinity! Identity of ideals!” he repeated, emitting his peculiar sound. “But in that case why go to bed together? (Excuse my coarseness!) Or do people go to bed together because of the identity of their ideals?” he said, bursting into a nervous laugh.

“But permit me,” said the lawyer. “Facts contradict you. We do see that matrimony exists, that all mankind, or the greater part of it, lives in wedlock, and many people honourably live long married lives.”

The grey-haired man again laughed.

“First you say that marriage is based on love, and when I express a doubt as to the existence of a love other than sensual, you prove the existence of love by the fact that marriages exist. But marriages in our days are mere deception!”