His visits to the Komof mansion and his intimate relations with Suzanne had opened his eyes to a new world and initiated him into the mysteries of the highest forms of luxury and refinement. The false notions of high life which the unsophisticated _bourgeois_ poet had at first entertained were soon dispelled by a more correct idea of the frightful extravagance which fashionable existence in Paris involves. Now, whilst his love was struggling for life and attempting to justify Suzanne, or at least to understand her, to discover in her something to save her from utter contempt, he began to see, thanks to his truer knowledge of the world, the tragedy in which this woman had played a leading part. Claude had summed up the situation briefly in these words: 'Seven years ago the Moraines were ruined.' Ruined! That word was now synonymous in René's ears with all the privation and humiliation it generally brings. Suzanne had been brought up in luxury to lead a life of luxury. It was as necessary to her as the air she breathed. Her husband had no doubt been the first to urge her to adopt her sinful expedient--so at least did the poet continue to judge poor Paul. Desforges had presented himself, and she had sinned, but not from love. When at length love did come to her could she break her chains? Yes--she could, by proposing to him, René, that each should give up all that bound them here, and that they two should go and live together for ever! 'Give up all! . . . They two! . . . Live together!' He caught himself uttering these words as in a dream. Was it too late? What if he went to Suzanne now and offered to sacrifice all to their love, to wipe out all the past except that love, and to bind up and identify with it their whole being, their whole present, their whole future? What if he said: 'You swear that you love me, that this love is the one and only truth in your heart. Prove it. You have no children, you are free. Take my life and give me yours. Go with me, and I will forgive you and believe in you. . . . I am going mad,' he said, suddenly bringing his mind to a standstill as this idea presented itself so clearly that he could actually see Suzanne listening to him. Mad? But why? The stories he had read in his youth about the redemption of fallen women by love--an idea of such sublime conception that it has attracted the greatest writers--came back to him. Balzac's Esther, the most divine character of an amorous courtesan ever painted, had often figured in his dreams of long ago, and natures like his, in which literary impressions precede those of life itself, never altogether lose the impress of such dreams.