Read "Claude's Confession" by Émile Zola online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Brothers, where is the sweetheart, queen of the lakes and clouds, or the harvest brunette whose glance is so deep as to suffice for a life of love?
Well, all is over: I have belied my youth; I am the fiancé of vice. The remembrance of my first hour of love is closely bound to that of an infamous den, of a couch over which strange kisses float. When, during the May nights, I shall evoke my fiancée, I shall see arise a half-clad, cynical girl, awaking and putting out her arms towards me. This pale and stained spectre will be a participant in all my love affairs. It will stand between my mouth and that of my bride, claiming the kisses of my soiled lips. When I am asleep, it will visit me in a horrible dream. When my sweetheart shall whisper in my ear some delicious word, it will be there to tell me that it was the first to talk thus to me. When I shall lean my head upon the shoulder of my bride, it will present to me its shoulder on which I once reposed. Thus it will ever freeze my heart with the accursed remembrance of our betrothal.