Chapter 8 Chapter VII

I don't know if the photo album of the woman who solicits whores is another link in the gang.Soon after, for my own safety, I decided to get married.Regular hours, home-cooked meals, the customs of marriage, routine contraception between beds, and, who knows, the final maturity of some moral standard, some spiritual substitute, I suppose. , if not purging my disgraceful and dangerous desires, at least might help me bring them under peaceful control.The small sum of money my father left me after his death (not much—the Hotel Milano had been sold long ago), combined with my striking, if wild, good looks, made me You can start looking for it calmly.After considerable deliberation, my choice fell on the daughter of a Polish doctor.This gentleman happened to be treating me for vertigo and tachycardia.We played chess; his daughter looked at me from behind her easel, borrowing eyes or knuckles from me and planting them in her messy cubist art of sociable girls and Not lilacs and lambs.Let me repeat calmly and forcefully: despite mes malheurs, I was, and still am, a remarkably handsome man; tall, sure-footed, with soft black hair, and a sombre but more attractive air.The extraordinary exuberance of man's vigor often manifests itself in a man's visible countenance in a gloomy, congested look which he must conceal.That's what happened to me.Heck, I know full well that I can get any grown woman I want if I just swipe my finger.In fact, I have grown into the habit of not paying too much attention to women, lest they come and pour their blood on my cold laps.If I were a fran ais moyen, a fancy gaudy woman, I could easily find some far more charming little bitch than Valeria among the many crazy beauties that hit my unforgiving rock .However, my choice was based on certain considerations, a poor compromise in essence, and I realized it too late.All this will show how stupid poor Humbert has always been in matters of sex.