Intoxicated by the novelty of
yielding to Satan, I gave him a free hand and the result was
months of debauchery and self-disgust. The underworld women I
met, the humdrum filth of their life, and their matter-of-fact,
business-like attitude toward it never ceased to shock and repel
me. I never left a creature of this kind without abominating her and
myself, yet I would soon, sometimes during the very same evening,
call on her again or on some other woman of her class
Many of these women would simulate love, but they failed to
deceive me. I knew that they lied and shammed to me just as I did
to giy customers, and their insincerities were only another source
of repugnance to me. But I frequented them in spite of it all, in
spite of myself. I spent on them more than I could afford.
Sometimes I would borrow money or pawn something for the
purpose of calling on them
The fact that these wretched women were not segregated as they
were in my native town probably had something to do with it.
Instead of being confined to a fixed out-of-the-way locality, they
were allowed to live in the same tenement-houses with
respectable people, beckoning to men from the front steps, under
open protection from the police.
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