s of our youth must end.
We start at dawn, as I from Tours to Clochegourde, we clutch the world,
our hearts hungry for love; then, when our treasure is in the crucible,
when we mingle with men and circumstances, all becomes gradually debased
and we find but little gold among the ashes. Such is life! life as it
is; great pretensions, small realities. I meditated long about myself,
debating what I could do after a blow like this which had mown down
every flower of my soul. I resolved to rush into the science of
politics, into the labyrinth of ambition, to cast woman from my life and
to make myself a statesman, cold and passionless, and so remain true to
the saint I loved. My thoughts wandered into far-off regions while my
eyes were fastened on the splendid tapestry of the yellowing oaks, the
stern summits, the bronzed foothills. I asked myself if Henriette's
virtue were not, after all, that of ignorance, and if I were indeed
guilty of her death. I fought against remorse. At last, in the sweetness
of an autumn midday, one of those last smiles of heaven which are so
beautiful in Touraine, I read the letter which at her request I was not
to open before her death. Judge of my feelings as I read it.

Madame de Mortsauf to the Vicomte Felix de Vandenesse:

Felix, friend, loved too well, I must now lay bare my heart to
you,--not so much to prove my love as to show you the weight of
obligation you have incurred by the depth and gravity of the
wounds you have inflicted on it. At this moment, when I sink
exhausted by the toils of life, worn out by the shocks of its
battle, the woman within me is, mercifully, dead; the mother alone
survives. Dear, you are now to see how it was that you were the
original cause of all my sufferings. Later, I willingly received
your blows; to-day I am dying of the final wound your hand has
given,--but there is joy, excessive joy in feeling myself
destroyed by him I love.

My physical sufferings will soon put an end to my mental strength;
I therefore use the last clear gleams of intelligence to implore
you to befriend my children and replace the heart of which you
have deprived them. I would solemnly impose this duty upon you if
I loved you less; but I prefer to let you choose it for yourself
as an act of sacred repentance, and also in faithful continuance
of your love--love, for us, was ever mingled with repentant
thoughts and expiatory fears! but--I know it w