ry and
their crown. This sublimeness combines with their abjection to overwhelm
them and raise them up. Whether they will or not, the inextinguishable
does not become extinguished. Illusion is untamable. Nothing is more
invincible than dreams, and man is almost made up of dreams. Nature will
not agree to be insolvable. One must contemplate, aspire, love. If need
be marble will set the example. The statue becomes a woman rather than
the woman a statue.

The sewer is a sanctuary in spite of itself. It is unhealthy, there is
vitiated air in it, but the irresistible phenomenon is none the less
accomplished; all the holy generosities bloom livid in this cave.
Cynicism and the secret despair of pity are driven back by ecstasy, the
magnificences of kindness shine through infamy; this orphan creature
feels herself to be wife, sister, mother; and this fraternity which has
no family, and this maternity which has no children, and this adoration
which has no altar, she casts into the outer darkness. Some one marries
her. Who? The man in the gloom. She sees on her finger the ring made of
the mysterious gold of dreams. And she sobs. Torrents of tears well from
her eyes. Sombre delights!

And at the same time, let us repeat it, she suffers unheard-of tortures.
She does not belong to him to whom she has given herself. Everybody
takes her away again. The brutal public hand holds the wretched creature
and will not let her go. She fain would flee. Flee whither? From whom?
From you, herself, above all from him whom she loves, the funereal ideal
man. She cannot.

Thus, and these are extreme afflictions, this hapless wight expiates,
and her expiation is brought upon her by her grandeur. Whatever she may
do, she has to love. She is condemned to the light. She has to condole,
she has to succour, she has to devote herself, she has to be kind.
A woman who has lost her modesty, fain would know love no more;
impossible. The refluxes of the heart are as inevitable as those of the
sea; the lights of the heart are as fixed as those of the night.

There is within us that which we can never lose. Abnegation, sacrifice,
tenderness, enthusiasm, all these rays turn against the woman within her
inmost self and attack and burn her. All these virtues remain to avenge
themselves upon her. When she would have been a wife, she is a slave.
Hers is the hopeless, thankless task of lulling a brigand in the blue
nebulousness of her illusions and of decking Mandr