n remake me! I am drinking the bitter cup
of expiation; but as I drink it I painfully spell out this sentence:
Expiation is not annihilation.

"'In my little house, alone, I eat my bread soaked in tears; but no one
sees me eat nor sees me weep. If I go back to Octave, I must give up
my tears--they would offend him. Oh! monsieur, how many virtues must a
woman tread under foot, not to give herself, but to restore herself to a
betrayed husband? Who could count them? God alone; for He alone can know
and encourage the horrible refinements at which the angels must turn
pale. Nay, I will go further. A woman has courage in the presence of her
husband if he knows nothing; she shows a sort of fierce strength in her
hypocrisy; she deceives him to secure him double happiness. But common
knowledge is surely degrading. Supposing I could exchange humiliation
for ecstasy? Would not Octave at last feel that my consent was sheer
depravity? Marriage is based on esteem, on sacrifices on both sides; but
neither Octave nor I could esteem each other the day after our reunion.
He would have disgraced me by a love like that of an old man for a
courtesan, and I should for ever feel the shame of being a chattel
instead of a lady. I should represent pleasure, and not virtue, in his
house. These are the bitter fruits of such a sin. I have made myself a
bed where I can only toss on burning coals, a sleepless pillow.

"'Here, when I suffer, I bless my sufferings; I say to God, "I thank
Thee!" But in my husband's house I should be full of terror, tasting
joys to which I have no right.

"'All this, monsieur, is not argument; it is the feeling of a soul made
vast and hollow by seven years of suffering. Finally, must I make a
horrible confession? I shall always feel at my bosom the lips of a child
conceived in rapture and joy, and in the belief in happiness, of a child
I nursed for seven months, that I shall bear in my womb all the days of
my life. If other children should draw their nourishment from me, they
would drink in tears mingling with the milk, and turning it sour. I
seem a light thing, you regard me as a child--Ah yes! I have a child's
memory, the memory which returns to us on the verge of the tomb. So, you
see, there is not a situation in that beautiful life to which the world
and my husband's love want to recall me, which is not a false position,
which does not cover a snare or reveal a precipice down which I must
fall, torn by pitiless roc