visit from him." "But I do reproach you, Madam," replied he,
"and I have good ground for so doing; why should you not see
him, if he has said nothing to you? but Madam, he has spoke to
you; if his passion had been expressed only by silence, it would
not have made so great an impression upon you; you have not
thought fit to tell me the whole truth; you have concealed the
greatest part from me; you have repented even of the little you
have acknowledged, and you have not the resolution to go on; I am
more unhappy than I imagined, more unhappy than any other man in
the world: you are my wife, I love you as my mistress, and I see
you at the same time in love with another, with the most amiable
man of the Court, and he sees you every day, and knows you are in
love with him: Alas! I believed that you would conquer your
passion for him, but sure I had lost my reason when I believed it
was possible." "I don't know," replied Madam de Cleves very
sorrowfully, "whether you was to blame in judging favourably of
so extraordinary a proceeding as mine; nor do I know if I was not
mistaken when I thought you would do me justice." "Doubt it
not, Madam," replied Monsieur de Cleves, "you was mistaken; you
expected from me things as impossible as those I expected from
you: how could you hope I should continue master of my reason?
Had you forgot that I was desperately in love with you, and that
I was your husband? Either of these two circumstances is enough
to hurry a man into extremities; what may they not do both
together? Alas! What do they not do? My thoughts are violent
and uncertain, and I am not able to control them; I no longer
think myself worthy of you, nor do I think you are worthy of me;
I adore you, I hate you, I offend you, I ask your pardon, I
admire you, I blush for my admiration: in a word, I have nothing
of tranquillity or reason left about me: I wonder how I have been