natural in manner, as in word and deed. His natural aptitude had made
his other studies easy to him, and his imagination made him quick to

grasp these lessons that lay outside the province of the schoolroom.
What a fair flower to tend! How great are the joys that mothers know!

In those days I began to understand how his own mother had been able
to live and to bear her sorrow. This, sir, was the great event of my

life; and now I am coming to the tragedy which drove me hither.
"It is the most ordinary commonplace story imaginable; but to me it

meant the most terrible pain. For some years I had thought of nothing
but my child, and how to make a man of him; then, when my son was

growing up and about to leave me, I grew afraid of my loneliness. Love
was a necessity of my existence; this need for affection had never

been satisfied, and only grew stronger with years. I was in every way
capable of a real attachment; I had been tried and proved. I knew all

that a steadfast love means, the love that delights to find a pleasure
in self-sacrifice; in everything I did my first thought would always

be for the woman I loved. In imagination I was fain to dwell on the
serene heights far above doubt and uncertainty, where love so fills

two beings that happiness flows quietly and evenly into their life,
their looks, and words. Such love is to a life what religion is to the

soul; a vital force, a power that enlightens and upholds. I understood
the love of husband and wife in nowise as most people do; for me its

full beauty and magnificence began precisely at the point where love
perishes in many a household. I deeply felt the moral grandeur of a

life so closely shared by two souls that the trivialities of everyday
existence should be powerless against such lasting love as theirs. But

where will the hearts be found whose beats are so nearly isochronous
(let the scientific term pass) that they may attain to this beatific

union? If they exist, nature and chance have set them far apart, so
that they cannot come together; they find each other too late, or

death comes too soon to separate them. There must be some good reasons
for these dispensations of fate, but I have never sought to discover

them. I cannot make a study of my wound, because I suffer too much
from it. Perhaps perfect happiness is a monster which our species

should not perpetuate. There were other causes for my fervent desire
for such a marriage as this. I had no friends, the world for me was a

desert. There is something in me that repels friendship. More than one
person has sought me out, but, in spite of efforts on my part, it came

to nothing. With many men I have been careful to show no sign of
something that is called 'superiority;' I have adapted my mind to

theirs; I have placed myself at their point of view, joined in their
laughter, and overlooked their defects; any fame I might have gained,

I would have bartered for a little kindly affection. They parted from
me without regret. If you seek for real feeling in Paris, snares await

you everywhere, and the end is sorrow. Wherever I set my foot, the
ground round about me seemed to burn. My readiness to acquiesce was

considered weakness though if I unsheathed my talons, like a man
conscious that he may some day wield the thunderbolts of power, I was

thought ill-natured; to others, the delightfullaughter that ceases
with youth, and in which in later years we are almost ashamed to

indulge, seemed absurd, and they amused themselves at my expense.
People may be bored nowadays, but none the less they expect you to

treat every trivial topic with befitting seriousness.
"A hateful era! You must bow down before mediocrity, frigidly polite

mediocrity which you despise--and obey. On more maturereflection, I
have discovered the reasons of these glaring inconsistencies.

Mediocrity is never out of fashion, it is the daily wear of society;
genius and eccentricity are ornaments that are locked away and only

brought out on certain days. Everything that ventures forth beyond the
protection of the grateful shadow of mediocrity has something

startling about it.
"So, in the midst of Paris, I led a solitary life. I had given up

everything to society, but it had given me nothing in return; and my
child was not enough to satisfy my heart, because I was not a woman.

My life seemed to be growing cold within me; I was bending under a
load of secret misery when I met the woman who was to make me know the

might of love, the reverence of an acknowledged love, love with its
teeming hopes of happiness--in one word--love.

"I had renewed my acquaintance with that old friend of my father's who
had once taken charge of my affairs. It was in his house that I first

met her whom I must love as long as life shall last. The longer we
live, sir, the more clearly we see the enormous influence of ideas

upon the events of life. Prejudices, worthy of all respect, and bred
by noble religious ideas, occasioned my misfortunes. This young girl

belonged to an exceedingdevout family, whose views of Catholicism
were due to the spirit of a sect improperly styled Jansenists, which,

in former times, caused troubles in France. You know why?"
"No," said Genestas.

"Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, once wrote a book which was believed to
contain propositions at variance with the doctrines of the Holy See.

When examined at a later date, there appeared to be nothing heretical
in the wording of the text, some authors even went so far as to deny

that the heretical propositions had any real existence. However it
was, these insignificant disputes gave rise to two parties in the

Gallican Church--the Jansenists and the Jesuits. Great men were found
in either camp, and a struggle began between two powerful bodies. The

Jansenists affected an excessivepurity of morals and of doctrine, and
accused the Jesuits of preaching a relaxed morality. The Jansenists,

in fact, were Catholic Puritans, if two contradictory terms can be
combined. During the Revolution, the Concordat occasioned an

unimportant schism, a little segregation of ultra-catholics who
refused to recognize the Bishops appointed by the authorities with the

consent of the Pope. This little body of the faithful was called the
Little Church; and those within its fold, like the Jansenists, led the

strictly ordered lives that appear to be a first necessity of
existence in all proscribed and persecuted sects. Many Jansenist

families had joined the Little Church. The family to which this young
girl belonged had embraced the equally rigid doctrines of both these

Puritanisms, tenets which impart a stern dignity to the character and
mien of those who hold them. It is the nature of positivedoctrine to

exaggerate the importance of the most ordinary actions of life by
connecting them with ideas of a future existence. This is the source

of a splendid and delicatepurity of heart, a respect for others and
for self, of an indescribably keen sense of right and wrong, a wide

charity, together with a justice so stern that it might well be called
inexorable, and lastly, a perfect hatred of lies and of all the vices

comprised by falsehood.
"I can recall no more delightful moments than those of our first

meeting at my old friend's house. I beheld for the first time this shy
young girl with her sincere nature, her habits of ready obedience. All

the virtues peculiar to the sect to which she belonged shone in her,
but she seemed to be unconscious of her merit. There was a grace,

which no austerity could diminish, about every movement of her
lissome, slender form; her quiet brow, the delicate grave outlines of

her face, and her clearly cut features indicated noble birth; her
expression was gentle and proud; her thick hair had been simply

braided, the coronet of plaits about her head served, all unknown to
her, as an adornment. Captain, she was for me the ideal type that is

always made real for us in the woman with whom we fall in love; for
when we love, is it not because we recognize beauty that we have

dreamed of, the beauty that has existed in idea for us is realized?
When I spoke to her, she answered simply, without shyness or

eagerness; she did not know the pleasure it was to me to see her, to
hear the musical sounds of her voice. All these angels are revealed to

our hearts by the same signs; by the sweetness of their tongues, the
tenderness in their eyes, by their fair, pale faces, and their

gracious ways. All these things are so blended and mingled that we
feel the charm of their presence, yet cannot tell in what that charm

consists, and every movement is an expression of a divine soul within.
I loved passionately" target="_blank" title="ad.多情地；热烈地">passionately. This newly awakened love satisfied all my

restless longings, all my ambitious dreams. She was beautiful,
wealthy, and nobly born; she had been carefully brought up; she had

all the qualifications which the world positively demands of a woman
placed in the high position which I desired to reach; she had been

well educated, she expressed herself with a sprightlyfacility at once
rare and common in France; where the most prettily worded phrases of

many women are emptiness itself, while her bright talk was full of
sense. Above all, she had a deep consciousness of her own dignity

which made others respect her; I know of no more excellent thing in a
wife. I must stop, captain; no one can describe the woman he loves

save very imperfectly, preexistent mysteries which defy analysis lie
between them.

"I very soon took my old friend into my confidence. He introduced me
to her family, and gave me the countenance of his honorable character.