"'All this, monsieur, is not argument; it is the feeling of a soul
made vast and hollow by seven years of suffering. Finally, must I make
a horrible confession? I shall always feel at my bosom the lips of a
child conceived in rapture and joy, and in the belief in happiness, of
a child I nursed for seven months, that I shall bear in my womb all
the days of my life. If other children should draw their nourishment
from me, they would drink in tears mingling with the milk, and turning
it sour. I seem a light thing, you regard me as a child--Ah yes! I
have a child's memory, the memory which returns to us on the verge of
the tomb. So, you see, there is not a situation in that beautiful life
to which the world and my husband's love want to recall me, which is
not a false position, which does not cover a snare or reveal a
precipice down which I must fall, torn by pitiless rocks. For five
years now I have been wandering in the sandy desert of the future
without finding a place convenient to repent in, because my soul is
possessed by true repentance.

"'Religion has its answers ready to all this, and I know them by
heart. This suffering, these difficulties, are my punishment, she
says, and God will give me strength to endure them. This, monsieur, is
an argument to certain pious souls gifted with an energy which I have
not. I have made my choice between this hell, where God does not
forbid my blessing Him, and the hell that awaits me under Count
Octave's roof.

"'One word more. If I were still a girl, with the experience I now
have, my husband is the man I should choose; but that is the very
reason of my refusal. I could not bear to blush before that man. What!
I should be always on my knees, he always standing upright; and if we
were to exchange positions, I should scorn him! I will not be better