Don't bow your head,don't feel humiliated;you have been the dupe of noble feelings;you have coquetted with poesy,not with a man.All women--all,do you hear me,Marie?--would have been seduced in your position.How absurd we should be,we men,we who have committed a thousand follies through a score of years,if we were not willing to grant you one imprudence in a lifetime!God keep me from triumphing over you or from offering you a pity you repelled so vehemently the other day.Perhaps that unfortunate man was sincere when he wrote to you,sincere in attempting to kill himself,sincere in returning that same night to Florine.Men are worth less than women.It is not for my own sake that I speak at this moment,but for yours.I am indulgent,but the world is not;it shuns a woman who makes a scandal.Is that just?I know not;but this I know,the world is cruel.Society refuses to calm the woes itself has caused;it gives its honors to those who best deceive it;it has no recompense for rash devotion.I see and know all that.I can't reform society,but this I can do,I can protect you,Marie,against yourself.This matter concerns a man who has brought you trouble only,and not one of those high and sacred loves which do,at times,command our abnegation,and even bear their own excuse.Perhaps I have been wrong in not varying your happiness,in not providing you with gayer pleasures,travel,amusements,distractions for the mind.Besides,I can explain to myself the impulse that has driven you to a celebrated man,by the jealous envy you have roused in certain women.Lady Dudley,Madame d'Espard,and my sister-in-law Emilie count for something in all this.Those women,against whom I ought to have put you more thoroughly on your guard,have cultivated your curiosity more to trouble me and cause me unhappiness,than to fling you into a whirlpool which,as I believe,you would never have entered."As she listened to these words,so full of kindness,the countess was torn by many conflicting feelings;but the storm within her breast was ruled by one of them,--a keen admiration for her husband.Proud and noble souls are prompt to recognize the delicacy with which they are treated.Tact is to sentiments what grace is to the body.Marie appreciated the grandeur of the man who bowed before a woman in fault,that he might not see her blush.She ran from the room like one beside herself,but instantly returned,fearing lest her hasty action might cause him uneasiness.
第44章 A LOVER SAVED AND LOST(8)（1 / 3）