the valley in the tone of my own thoughts. The fields were bare, the
leaves of the poplars falling, the few that remained were rusty, the

vine-stalks were burned, the tops of the trees were tan-colored, like
the robes in which royalty once clothed itself as if to hide the

purple of its power beneath the brown of grief. Still in harmony with
my thoughts, the valley, where the yellow rays of the setting sun were

coldly dying, seemed to me a living image of my heart.
To leave a beloved woman is terrible or natural, according as the mind

takes it. For my part, I found myself suddenly in a strange land of
which I knew not the language. I was unable to lay hold of things to

which my soul no longer felt attachment" target="_blank" title="n.附着；附件；爱慕">attachment. Then it was that the height
and the breadth of my love came before me; my Henriette rose in all

her majesty in this desert where I existed only through thoughts of
her. That form so worshipped made me vow to keep myself spotless

before my soul's divinity, to wear ideally the white robe of the
Levite, like Petrarch, who never entered Laura's presence unless

clothed in white. With what impatience I awaited the first night of my
return to my father's roof, when I could read the letter which I felt

of during the journey as a miser fingers the bank-bills he carries
about him. During the night I kissed the paper on which my Henriette

had manifested her will; I sought to gather the mysterious emanations
of her hand, to recover the intonations of her voice in the hush of my

being. Since then I have never read her letters except as I read that
first letter; in bed, amid total silence. I cannot understand how the

letters of our beloved can be read in any other way; yet there are
men, worthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的；不足道的">unworthy to be loved, who read such letters in the turmoil of the

day, laying them aside and taking them up again with odious composure.
Here, Natalie, is the voice which echoed through the silence of that

night. Behold the noble figure which stood before me and pointed to
the right path among the cross-ways at which I stood.

To Monsieur le Vicomte Felix de Vandenesse:
What happiness for me, dear friend, to gather the scattered

elements of my experience that I may arm you against the dangers
of the world, through which I pray that you pass scatheless. I

have felt the highest pleasures of maternal love as night after
night I have thought of these things. While writing this letter,

sentence by sentence, projecting my thoughts into the life you are
about to lead, I went often to my window. Looking at the towers of

Frapesle, visible in the moonlight, I said to myself, "He sleeps,
I wake for him." Delightful feelings! which recall the happiest of

my life, when I watched Jacques sleeping in his cradle and waited
till he wakened, to feed him with my milk. You are the man-child

whose soul must now be strengthened by precepts never taught in
schools, but which we women have the privilege of inculcating.

These precepts will influence your success; they prepare the way
for it, they will secure it. Am I not exercising a spiritual

motherhood in giving you a standard by which to judge the actions
of your life; a motherhood comprehended, is it not, by the child?

Dear Felix, let me, even though I may make a few mistakes, let me
give to our friendship a proof of the disinterestedness which

sanctifies it.
In yielding you to the world I am renouncing you; but I love you

too well not to sacrifice my happiness to your welfare. For the
last four months you have made me reflect deeply on the laws and

customs which regulate our epoch. The conversations I have had
with my aunt, well-known to you who have replaced her, the events

of Monsieur de Mortsauf's life, which he has told me, the tales
related by my father, to whom society and the court are familiar

in their greatest as well as in their smallest aspects, all these
have risen in my memory for the benefit of my adopted child at the

moment when he is about to be launched, well-nigh alone, among
men; about to act without adviser in a world where many are

wrecked by their own best qualities thoughtlessly displayed, while
others succeed through a judicious use of their worst.

I ask you to ponder this statement of my opinion of society as a
whole; it is concise, for to you a few words are sufficient.

I do not know whether societies are of divineorigin or whether
they were invented by man. I am equallyignorant of the direction

in which they tend. What I do know certainly is the fact of their
existence. No sooner therefore do you enter society, instead of

living a life apart, than you are bound to consider its conditions
binding; a contract is signed between you. Does society in these

days gain more from a man than it returns to him? I think so; but
as to whether the individual man finds more cost than profit, or

buys too dear the advantages he obtains, concerns the legislator
only; I have nothing to say to that. In my judgment you are bound

to obey in all things the general law, without discussion, whether
it injures or benefits your personal interests. This principle may

seem to you a very simple one, but it is difficult of application;
it is like sap, which must infiltrate the smallest of the

capillary tubes to stir the tree, renew its verdure, develop its
flowers, and ripen fruit. Dear, the laws of society are not all

written in a book; manners and customs create laws, the more
important of which are often the least known. Believe me, there

are neither teachers, nor schools, nor text-books for the laws
that are now to regulate your actions, your language, your visible

life, the manner of your presentation to the world, and your quest
of fortune. Neglect those secret laws or fail to understand them,

and you stay at the foot of the social system instead of looking
down upon it. Even though this letter may seem to you diffuse,

telling you much that you have already thought, let me confide to
you a woman's ethics.

To explain society on the theory of individual happiness adroitly
won at the cost of the greater number is a monstrousdoctrine,

which in its strictapplication leads men to believe that all they
can secretly lay hold of before the law or society or other

individuals condemn it as a wrong is honestly and fairly theirs.
Once admit that claim and the clever thief goes free; the woman

who violates her marriage vow without the knowledge of the world
is virtuous and happy; kill a man, leaving no proof for justice,

and if, like Macbeth, you win a crown you have done wisely; your
selfish interests become the higher law; the only question then is

how to evade, without witnesses or proof, the obstacles which law
and morality place between you and your self-indulgence. To those

who hold this view of society, the problem of making their
fortune, my dear friend, resolves itself into playing a game where

the stakes are millions or the galleys, political triumphs or
dishonor. Still, the green cloth is not long enough for all the

players, and a certain kind of genius is required to play the
game. I say nothing of religious beliefs, nor yet of feelings;

what concerns us now is the running-gear of the great machine of
gold and iron, and its practical results with which men's lives

are occupied. Dear child of my heart, if you share my horror at
this criminal theory of the world, society will present to your

mind, as it does to all sane minds, the opposite theory of duty.
Yes, you will see that man owes himself to man in a thousand

differing ways. To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the
workman and the pauper than the pauper and the workman owe to the

duke. The obligations of duty enlarge in proportion to the
benefits which society bestows on men; in accordance with the

maxim, as true in social politics as in business, that the burden
of care and vigilance is everywhere in proportion to profits. Each

man pays his debt in his own way. When our poor toiler at the
Rhetoriere comes home weary with his day's work has he not done

his duty? Assuredly he has done it better than many in the ranks
above him.

If you take this view of society, in which you are about to seek a
place in keeping with your intellect and your faculties, you must

set before you as a generating principle and mainspring, this
maxim: never permit yourself to act against either your own

conscience or the public conscience. Though my entreaty" target="_blank" title="n.恳求，哀求">entreaty may seem
to you superfluous, yet I entreat, yes, your Henriette implores

you to ponder the meaning of that rule. It seems simple but, dear,
it means that integrity, loyalty, honor, and courtesy are the

safest and surest instruments for your success. In this selfish
world you will find many to tell you that a man cannot make his

way by sentiments, that too much respect for moral considerations
will hinder his advance. It is not so; you will see men ill-

trained, ill-taught, incapable of measuring the future, who are
rough to a child, rude to an old woman, willing" target="_blank" title="a.不愿意的；不情愿的">unwilling to be irked by

some worthy old man on the ground that they can do nothing for