L'humanité souleva sa robe et me montra, comme à un adepte digne d'elle, sa monstrueuse nudité. - Alfred de Musset

Le mal existe, mais pas sans le bien, comme l'ombre existe, mais pas sans la lumière. (III, 3)

Evil exists, but not without the good, as the shadow exists, but not without the light.

La perfection n'existe pas ; la comprendre est le triomphe de l'intelligence humaine ; la désirer pour la posséder est la plus dangereuse des folies.

P 29

During the wars of the Empire, while husbands and brothers were in Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war, thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the ground and remount their horses.