There is none but God who can understand me.No man,not Saint Augustine himself,the tenderest of the Fathers of the Church,could enter into the scruples of my conscience,which are to me as the circles of Dante's hell,whence there is no escape.Another than my husband,a different man,however unworthy of the offering,has had all my love.No,he has not had it,for he did not take it;I gave it him as a mother gives her child a wonderful toy,which it breaks.For me there never could be two loves.In some natures love can never be on trial;it is,or it is not.When it comes,when it rises up,it is complete.--Well,that life of eighteen months was to me a life of eighteen years;I threw into it all the faculties of my being,which were not impoverished by their effusiveness;they were exhausted by that delusive intimacy in which I alone was genuine.For me the cup of happiness is not drained,nor empty;and nothing can refill it,for it is broken.I am out of the fray;I have no weapons left.Having thus utterly abandoned myself,what am I?--the leavings of a feast.I had but one name bestowed on me,Honorine,as I had but one heart.My husband had the young girl,a worthless lover had the woman--there is nothing left!--Then let myself be loved!that is the great idea you mean to utter to me.Oh!but I still am something,and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute!Yes,by the light of the conflagration Isaw clearly;and I tell you--well,I could imagine surrendering to another man's love,but to Octave's?--No,never.'
"'Ah!you love him,'I said.
"'I esteem him,respect him,venerate him;he never has done me the smallest hurt;he is kind,he is tender;but I can never more love him.However,'she went on,'let us talk no more of this.Discussion makes everything small.I will express my notions on this subject in writing to you,for at this moment they are suffocating me;I am feverish,my feet are standing in the ashes of my Paraclete.All that I see,these things which I believed I had earned by my labor,now remind me of everything I wish to forget.Ah!I must fly from hence as I fled from my home.'