"Poor Henriette!"
When I returned to Clochegourde, the springtime, the first leaves,

the fragrance of the flowers, the white and fleecy clouds, the
Indre, the sky, all spoke to me in a language till then unknown.

If you have forgotten those terrible kisses, I have never been
able to efface them from my memory,--I am dying of them! Yes, each

time that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was
shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere

presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm
will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I

asked myself involuntarily, "What must be such joys?" Our mutual
looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure

of my arm on yours, your voice with its tender tones,--all, even
the slightest things, shook me so violently that clouds obscured

my sight; the murmur of rebellious senses filled my ears. Ah! if
in those moments when outwardly I increased my coldness you had

taken me in your arms I should have died of happiness. Sometimes I
desired it, but prayer subdued the evil thought. Your name uttered

by my children filled my heart with warmer blood, which gave color
to my cheeks; I laid snares for my poor Madeleine to induce her to

say it, so much did I love the tumults of that sensation. Ah! what
shall I say to you? Your writing had a charm; I gazed at your

letters as we look at a portrait.
If on that first day you obtained some fatal power over me,

conceive, dear friend, how infinite that power became when it was
given to me to read your soul. What delights filled me when I

found you so pure, so absolutelytruthful, gifted with noble
qualities, capable of noblest things, and already so tried! Man

and child, timid yet brave! What joy to find we both were
consecrated by a common grief! Ever since that evening when we

confided our childhoods to each other, I have known that to lose
you would be death,--yes, I have kept you by me selfishly. The

certainty felt by Monsieur de la Berge that I should die if I lost
you touched him deeply, for he read my soul. He knew how necessary

I was to my children and the count; he did not command me to
forbid you my house, for I promised to continue pure in deed and

thought. "Thought," he said to me, "is involuntary, but it can be
watched even in the midst of anguish." "If I think," I replied,

"all will be lost; save me from myself. Let him remain beside me
and keep me pure!" The good old man, though stern, was moved by my

sincerity. "Love him as you would a son, and give him your
daughter," he said. I accepted bravely that life of suffering that

I might not lose you, and I suffered joyfully, seeing that we were
called to bear the same yoke--My God! I have been firm, faithful

to my husband; I have given you no foothold, Felix, in your
kingdom. The grandeur of my passion has reacted on my character; I

have regarded the tortures Monsieur de Mortsauf has inflicted on
me as expiations; I bore them proudly in condemnation of my faulty

desires. Formerly I was disposed to murmur at my life, but since
you entered it I have recovered some gaiety, and this has been the

better for the count. Without this strength, which I derived
through you, I should long since have succumbed to the inward life

of which I told you.
If you have counted for much in the exercise of my duty so have my

children also. I felt I had deprived them of something, and I
feared I could never do enough to make amends to them; my life was

thus a continual struggle which I loved. Feeling that I was less a
mother, less an honest wife, remorse entered my heart; fearing to

fail in my obligations, I constantly" target="_blank" title="ad.经常地；不断地">constantly went beyond them. Often have
I put Madeleine between you and me, giving you to each other,

raising barriers between us,--barriers that were powerless! for
what could stifle the emotions which you caused me? Absent or

present, you had the same power. I preferred Madeleine to Jacques
because Madeleine was sometime to be yours. But I did not yield

you to my daughter without a struggle. I told myself that I was
only twenty-eight when I first met you, and you were nearly

twenty-two; I shortened the distance between us; I gave myself up
to delusive hopes. Oh, Felix! I tell you these things to save you

from remorse; also, perhaps, to show you that I was not cold and
insensible, that our sufferings were cruellymutual; that Arabella

had no superiority of love over mine. I too am the daughter of a
fallen race, such as men love well.

There came a moment when the struggle was so terrible that I wept
the long nights through; my hair fell off,--you have it! Do you

remember the count's illness? Your nobility of soul far from
raising my soul belittled it. Alas! I dreamed of giving myself to

you some day as the reward of so much heroism; but the folly was a
brief one. I laid it at the feet of God during the mass that day

when you refused to be with me. Jacques' illness and Madeleine's
sufferings seemed to me the warnings of God calling back to Him

His lost sheep.
Then your love--which is so natural--for that Englishwoman

revealed to me secrets of which I had no knowledge. I loved you
better than I knew. The constant emotions of this stormy life, the

efforts that I made to subdue myself with no other succor than
that religion gave me, all, all has brought about the malady of

which I die. The terrible shocks I have undergone brought on
attacks about which I kept silence. I saw in death the sole

solution of this hiddentragedy. A lifetime of anger, jealousy,
and rage lay in those two months between the time my mother told

me of your relations with Lady Dudley, and your return to
Clochegourde. I wished to go to Paris; murder was in my heart; I

desired that woman's death; I was indifferent to my children.
Prayer, which had hitherto been to me a balm, was now without

influence on my soul. Jealousy made the breach through which death
has entered. And yet I have kept a placid brow. Yes, that period

of struggle was a secret between God and myself. After your return
and when I saw that I was loved, even as I loved you, that nature

had betrayed me and not your thought, I wished to live,--it was
then too late! God had taken me under His protection, filled no

doubt with pity for a being true with herself, true with Him,
whose sufferings had often led her to the gates of the sanctuary.

My beloved! God has judged me, Monsieur de Mortsauf will pardon
me, but you--will you be merciful? Will you listen to this voice

which now issues from my tomb? Will you repair the evils of which
we are equally guilty?--you, perhaps, less than I. You know what I

wish to ask of you. Be to Monsieur de Mortsauf what a sister of
charity is to a sick man; listen to him, love him--no one loves

him. Interpose between him and his children as I have done. Your
task will not be a long one. Jacques will soon leave home to be in

Paris near his grandfather, and you have long promised me to guide
him through the dangers of that life. As for Madeleine, she will

marry; I pray that you may please her. She is all myself, but
stronger; she has the will in which I am lacking; the energy

necessary for the companion of a man whose career destines him to
the storms of political life; she is clever and perceptive. If

your lives are united she will be happier than her mother. By
acquiring the right to continue my work at Clochegourde you will

blot out the faults I have not sufficiently expiated, though they
are pardoned in heaven and also on earth, for HE is generous and

will forgive me. You see I am ever selfish; is it not the proof of
a despotic love? I wish you to still love me in mine. Unable to be

yours in life, I bequeath to you my thoughts and also my duties.
If you do not wish to marry Madeleine you will at least seek the

repose of my soul by making Monsieur de Mortsauf as happy as he
ever can be.

Farewell, dear child of my heart; this is the farewell of a mind
absolutely sane, still full of life; the farewell of a spirit on

which thou hast shed too many and too great joys to suffer thee to
feel remorse for the catastrophe they have caused. I use that word

"catastrophe" thinking of you and how you love me; as for me, I
reach the haven of my rest, sacrificed to duty and not without

regret--ah! I tremble at that thought. God knows better than I
whether I have fulfilled his holy laws in accordance with their

spirit. Often, no doubt, I have tottered, but I have not fallen;
the most potent cause of my wrong-doing lay in the grandeur of the