"Graziella" is a story of love and death, on one side, of desertion and expiation--expiation through sentimental tears--on the other. One would gladly trust, if one could, that the reality veiled under the fiction was as free in fact from outward guilt as it is idealized to have been by the writer's fancy. But neither this supposition, nor any other charitable supposition whatever, can redeem "Graziella" from the condemnation of being steeped in egregious vanity, egotism, and false sentiment, from the heart of the author. We strike into the midst of the narrative, toward the end. There has been described the growth of relation between the author and the heroine of the idyll, a fisherman's daughter. And now this heroine, Graziella, is desired in marriage by a worthy young countryman of hers. Such a suitor--for she loves, though secretly, the author (this by the way is a thing almost of course with Lamartine)--the girl cannot bring herself to accept. In despair she flees to make herself a nun. She is found by the autobiographer alone in a deserted house. He ministers to her in her exhausted state--and this to the following result: "I feel well," said she to me, speaking in a tone of voice that was low, soft, even, and monotonous, as if her breast had completely lost its vibration and its accent at the same time, and as if her voice had only retained one single note. "I have in vain sought to hide it from myself--I have in vain sought to hide it forever from thee. I may die, but thou art the only one that I can ever love. They wished to betroth me to another; thou art the one to whom my soul is betrothed. I will never give myself to another on earth, for I have already secretly given myself to thee. To thee on earth, or to God in heaven! that is the vow I made the first day I discovered that my heart was sick for thee! I well know that I am only a poor girl, unworthy to touch thy feet even in thought; therefore, have I never asked thee to love me. I never will ask thee if thou dost love me. But I--I love thee, I love thee, I love thee!" And she seemed to concentrate her whole soul in those three words. "Now despise me, mock me, spurn me with thy feet! Laugh at me if thou wilt, as a mad thing who fancies she is a queen in the midst of her tatters. Hold me up to the scorn of the whole world! Yes, I will tell them with my own lips--'Yes, I love him. And had you been in my place you would have done as I have--you would have loved him or have died.'" The man thus wooed by the maid assures her of his reciprocal affection. But the author explains to his readers: