im, but that you knew he
distinguishes your rigour from incivility? But why should you exercise
that rigour towards him? From a person like you, all things are
favours, except indifference." "I did not think," replied Madam de
Cleves, "whatever suspicions you have of the Duke de Nemours, that you
could reproach me for not admitting a visit from him." "But I do
reproach you, Madam," replied he, "and I have good ground for so doing;
why should you not see him, if he has said nothing to you? but Madam,
he has spoke to you; if his passion had been expressed only by silence,
it would not have made so great an impression upon you; you have not
thought fit to tell me the whole truth; you have concealed the greatest
part from me; you have repented even of the little you have
acknowledged, and you have not the resolution to go on; I am more
unhappy than I imagined, more unhappy than any other man in the world:
you are my wife, I love you as my mistress, and I see you at the same
time in love with another, with the most amiable man of the Court, and
he sees you every day, and knows you are in love with him: Alas! I
believed that you would conquer your passion for him, but sure I had
lost my reason when I believed it was possible." "I don't know,"
replied Madam de Cleves very sorrowfully, "whether you was to blame in
judging favourably of so extraordinary a proceeding as mine; nor do I
know if I was not mistaken when I thought you would do me justice."
"Doubt it not, Madam," replied Monsieur de Cleves, "you was mistaken;
you expected from me things as impossible as those I expected from you:
how could you hope I should continue master of my reason? Had you
forgot that I was desperately in love with you, and that I was your
husband? Either of these two circumstances is enough to hurry a man
into extremities; what may they not do both together? Alas! What do
they not do? My thoughts are violent and uncertain, and I am not able
to control them; I no longer think myself worthy of you, nor do I think
you are worthy of me; I adore you, I hate you, I offend you, I ask your
pardon, I admire you, I blush for my admiration: in a word, I have
nothing of tranquillity or reason left about me: I wonder how I have
been able to live since you spoke to me at Colomiers, and since you
learned, from what the Queen-Dauphin told you, that your adventure was
known; I can't discover how it came to be known, nor what passed
between the Duke de N