In C++, the lifetime of an object begins when the constructor finishes successfully. Inside the constructor, the object does not exist yet.

Q: What does emitting an exception from a constructor mean?

A: It means that construction has failed, the object never existed, its lifetime never began. [source]

My question is: Does the same hold true for Java? What happens, for example, if I hand this to another object, and then my constructor fails?

Foo()
{
    Bar.remember(this);
    throw new IllegalStateException();
}

Is this well-defined? Does Bar now have a reference to a non-object?