e satisfied. There are transports
of rage mingled in all of them which degenerates into a kind of fury not
less painful than unreasonable. Love, if I may be permitted so to name
it in this guise, has its uncertainties, its violent agitations, its
irresolute resolutions and an abyss of jealousies."

And further:

"Ah! What, then, is easier than making of our passions an insupportable
pain or sin, when, if we cut out, as is very just, the little sweetness
through which they lead us, there is left of them only the cruel
disquiet and bitterness with which they abound? Our sins are against us,
our sins are upon us, our sins are in the midst of us; like an arrow
piercing our body, an insupportable weight upon our head, a poison
devouring our entrails."

Is not all that you have just listened to designed to show you the
bitterness of passion? I leave you this book, lined and thumb-marked by
the studious man who has found his thought there. And that man, who has
been inspired from a source of this kind, who has written of adultery in
the terms you have listened to, is prosecuted for outrage of public and
religious morals!

A few lines still upon the _woman sinner_, and you will see how
M. Flaubert, having decided to paint this ardour, understood taking
inspiration from this model:

"But, punished for our error, without being deceived by it, we seek in
change the remedy for our scorn; we wander from object to object, and
if, finally there is some one who holds us, it is not because we are
content with our choice, but because we are bound by our inconstancy."

* * * * *

"All appeared to her empty, false, disgusting in these creatures: far
from finding there those first charms which her heart had had so much
difficulty in defending, she saw in them now only frivolity, danger and
vanity."

* * * * *

"I will not speak of an entanglement of passion; what fears there are
that the mystery of it cannot dispel! what measures to keep on the side
of well-being and pride! what eyes to shun! what watchers to deceive!
what returns to fear from those whom one chooses for their aids and
confidants in their passion! what indignities to suffer from him,
perhaps, for whom one has sacrificed honour and liberty, and of whom one
dare not complain! To all this, add those cruel moments when passion,
less lively, leaves us to choose between falling back upon ourselves and
feelin