l and mind,
worldly-wise, and likely to rise by following the public road without
being obliged to wander along crooked, doubtful by-paths. However, you
knew Adolphe; you appreciated his worth. I am loved, he is a father,
I idolize our children. Adolphe is kindness itself to me; I admire and
love him. But, my dear, in this complete happiness lurks a thorn. The
roses upon which I recline have more than one fold. In the heart of a
woman, folds speedily turn to wounds. These wounds soon bleed, the evil
spreads, we suffer, the suffering awakens thoughts, the thoughts swell
and change the course of sentiment.

"Ah, my dear, you shall know all about it, though it is a cruel thing
to say--but we live as much by vanity as by love. To live by love alone,
one must dwell somewhere else than in Paris. What difference would it
make to us whether we had only one white percale gown, if the man we
love did not see other women dressed differently, more elegantly than
we--women who inspire ideas by their ways, by a multitude of little
things which really go to make up great passions? Vanity, my dear, is
cousin-german to jealousy, to that beautiful and noble jealousy which
consists in not allowing one's empire to be invaded, in reigning
undisturbed in a soul, and passing one's life happily in a heart.

"Ah, well, my woman's vanity is on the rack. Though some troubles may
seem petty indeed, I have learned, unfortunately, that in the home there
are no petty troubles. For everything there is magnified by incessant
contact with sensations, with desires, with ideas. Such then is the
secret of that sadness which you have surprised in me and which I did
not care to explain. It is one of those things in which words go too
far, and where writing holds at least the thought within bounds by
establishing it. The effects of a moral perspective differ so radically
between what is said and what is written! All is so solemn, so serious
on paper! One cannot commit any more imprudences. Is it not this fact
which makes a treasure out of a letter where one gives one's self over
to one's thoughts?

"You doubtless thought me wretched, but I am only wounded. You
discovered me sitting alone by the fire, and no Adolphe. I had just
finished putting the children to bed; they were asleep. Adolphe for the
tenth time had been invited out to a house where I do not go, where they
want Adolphe without his wife. There are drawing-rooms where he goes
without me, just at