ust make you acquainted with that great mystery which
constitutes your despair, since you are ignorant of the malady that
devours you. We have a twofold existence, 'm'amie': our internal life,
that of our feelings powerfully works within us, while the external
life dominates despite ourselves. We are never independent of men,
more especially in an elevated condition. Alone, we think ourselves
mistresses of our destiny; but the entrance of two or three people
fastens on all our chains, by recalling our rank and our retinue.
Nay; shut yourself up and abandon yourself to all the daring and
extraordinary resolutions that the passions may raise up in you, to
the marvellous sacrifices they may suggest to you. A lackey coming and
asking your orders will at once break the charm and bring you back
to your real life. It is this contest between your projects and your
position which destroys you. You are invariably angry with yourself; you
bitterly reproach yourself."

Marie turned away her head.

"Yes, you believe yourself criminal. Pardon yourself, Marie; all men
are beings so relative and so dependent one upon another that I know not
whether the great retreats of the world that we sometimes see are not
made for the world itself. Despair has its pursuits, and solitude its
coquetry. It is said that the gloomiest hermits can not refrain
from inquiring what men say of them. This need of public opinion is
beneficial, in that it combats, almost always victoriously, that which
is irregular in our imagination, and comes to the aid of duties which
we too easily forget. One experiences (you will feel it, I hope) in
returning to one's proper lot, after the sacrifice of that which had
diverted the reason, the satisfaction of an exile returning to his
family, of a sick person at sight of the sun after a night afflicted
with frightful dreams.

"It is this feeling of a being returned, as it were, to its natural
state that creates the calm which you see in many eyes that have also
had their tears-for there are few women who have not known tears such as
yours. You would think yourself perjured if you renounced Cinq-Mars! But
nothing binds you; you have more than acquitted yourself toward him by
refusing for more than two years past the royal hands offered you. And,
after all, what has he done, this impassioned lover? He has elevated
himself to reach you; but may not the ambition which here seems to you
to have aided love have made use of that