pleasinguncertainty" target="_blank" title="n.不可靠；不确定的事">uncertainty. He immediately went into his wife's room,
and after having talked to her for some time about indifferent

matters, he could not forbear asking her what she had done, and
who she had seen, and accordingly she gave him an account: when

he found she did not name the Duke de Nemours he asked her
trembling, if those were all she had seen, in order to give her

an occasion to name the Duke, and that he might not have the
grief to see she made use of any evasion. As she had not seen

him, she did not name him; when Monsieur de Cleves with accents
of sorrow, said, "And have you not seen the Duke de Nemours, or

have you forgot him?" "I have not seen him indeed," answered
she; "I was ill, and I sent one of my women to make my

excuses." "You was ill then only for him," replied Monsieur
de Cleves, "since you admitted the visits of others: why this

distinction with respect to the Duke de Nemours? Why is not he
to you as another man? Why should you be afraid of seeing him?

Why do you let him perceive that you are so? Why do you show him
that you make use of the power which his passion gives you over

him? Would you dare refuse to see him, but that you knew he
distinguishes your rigour from incivility? But why should you

exercise that rigour towards him? From a person like you, all
things are favours, except indifference." "I did not think,"

replied Madam de Cleves, "whatever suspicions you have of the
Duke de Nemours, that you could reproach me for not admitting a

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

able to live since you spoke to me at Colomiers, and since you
learned, from what the Queen-Dauphin told you, that your

adventure was known; I can't discover how it came to be known,
nor what passed between the Duke de Nemours and you upon the

subject; you will never explain it to me, nor do I desire you to
do it; I only desire you to remember that you have made me the

most unfortunate, the most wretched of men."
Having spoke these words, Monsieur de Cleves left his wife, and

set out the next day without seeing her; but he wrote her a
letter full of sorrow, and at the same time very kind and

obliging: she gave an answer to it so moving and so full of
assurances both as to her past and future conduct, that as those

assurances were grounded in truth, and were the real effect of
her sentiments, the letter made great impressions on Monsieur de

Cleves, and gave him some tranquillity; add to this that the Duke
de Nemours going to the King as well as himself, he had the

satisfaction to know that he would not be in the same place with
Madam de Cleves. Everytime that lady spoke to her husband, the

passion he expressed for her, the handsomeness of his behaviour,
the friendship she had for him, and the thought of what she owed

him, made impressions in her heart that weakened the idea of the
Duke de Nemours; but it did not continue long, that idea soon

returned more lively than before.
For a few days after the Duke was gone, she was hardly sensible

of his absence; afterwards it tortured her; ever since she had
been in love with him, there did not pass a day, but she either

feared or wished to meet him, and it was a wounding thought to
her to consider that it was no more in the power of fortune to

contrive their meeting.
She went to Colomiers, and ordered to be carried thither the

large pictures she had caused to be copied from the originals
which the Duchess of Valentinois had procured to be drawn for her

fine house of Annett. All the remarkable actions that had passed
in the late King's reign were represented in these pieces, and

among the rest was the Siege of Mets, and all those who had
distinguished themselves at that Siege were painted much to the

life. The Duke de Nemours was of this number, and it was that
perhaps which had made Madam de Cleves desirous of having the

pictures.
Madam de Martigues not being able to go along with the Court,

promised her to come and pass some days at Colomiers. Though
they divided the Queen's favour, they lived together without envy

or coldness; they were friends, but not confidants; Madam de
Cleves knew that Madam de Martigues was in love with the

Viscount, but Madam de Martigues did not know that Madam de
Cleves was in love with the Duke de Nemours, nor that she was

beloved by him. The relation Madam de Cleves had to the Viscount
made her more dear to Madam de Martigues, and Madam de Cleves was

also fond of her as a person who was in love as well as herself,
and with an intimate friend of her own lover.

Madam de Martigues came to Colomiers according to her promise,
and found Madam de Cleves living in a very solitary manner: that

Princess affected a perfect solitude, and passed the evenings in
her garden without being accompanied even by her domestics; she

frequently came into the pavilion where the Duke de Nemours had
overheard her conversation with her husband; she delighted to be

in the bower that was open to the garden, while her women and
attendants waited in the other bower under the pavilion, and

never came to her but when she called them. Madam de Martigues
having never seen Colomiers was surprised at the extraordinary

beauty of it, and particularly with the pleasantness of the
pavilion. Madam de Cleves and she usually passed the evenings

there. The liberty of being alone in the night in so agreeable a
place would not permit the conversation to end soon between two

young ladies, whose hearts were enflamed with violentpassions,
and they took great pleasure in conversing together, though they

were not confidants.
Madam de Martigues would have left Colomiers with great

reluctance had she not quitted it to go to a place where the
Viscount was; she set out for Chambort, the Court being there.

The King had been anointed at Rheims by the Cardinal of Loraine,
and the design was to pass the rest of the summer at the castle