The Wardrobe — Guy De Maupassant

As we sat chatting after dinner, a party of men, the conversation turned on women, for lack of something else. One of us said: "Here's a funny thing that happened to me on, that very subject." And he told us the following story: One evening last winter I suddenly felt overcome by that overpowering sense of misery and languor that takes possession of one from time to time. I was in my own apartment, all alone, and I was convinced that if I gave in to my feelings I should have a terrible attack of melancholia, one of those attacks that lead to suicide when they recur too often.