Ah! dearest, what happiness in
having at all hours an enormous interest, which multiplies the fibres
of the heart and varies them indefinitely! to feel no longer cold
indifference! to find one's very life depending on a thousand trifles!
--on a walk where an eye will beam to us from a crowd, on a glance
which pales the sun! Ah! what intoxication, dear, to live! to _live_
when other women are praying on their knees for emotions that never
come to them! Remember, darling, that for this poem of delight there
is but a single moment,--youth! In a few years winter comes, and cold.
Ah! if you possessed these living riches of the heart, and were
threatened with the loss of them--"
Madame du Tillet, terrified, had covered her face with her hands
during the passionate utterance of this anthem.
"I did not even think of reproaching you, my beloved," she said at
last, seeing her sister's face bathed in hot tears. "You have cast
into my soul, in one moment, more brands than I have tears to quench.
Yes, the life I live would justify to my heart a love like that you
picture. Let me believe that if we could have seen each other oftener,
we should not now be where we are. If you had seen my sufferings, you
must have valued your own happiness the more, and you might have
strengthened me to resist my tyrant, and so have won a sort of peace.
Your misery is an incident which chance may change, but mine is daily
and perpetual.
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