"He has begged to introduce his wife to me. I hate her by anticipation,--and yet it is to her that I shall be indebted one day for receiving her husband. But this obligation irritates me against her,--it is her happiness I envy. She bears the name of the man who exercises such irresistible influence over me,--a name which I cannot now hear without being troubled. Oh, that woman! I hate her, I hate her--she is too happy! "After all, why blush at my love? It will never be guilty--for it will never be happy! "My heart's ambition is too great. He shall never know what he might have been to me had we both been free. Oh! what a dream! what paradise! "The passion I experience is too powerful, too vast, to descend even to the falsehoods to which we should both be reduced, if we sought the pleasures of a vulgar love. No, no, to belong to him in the open gaze of day, in the face of the world, to bear his name nobly and proudly--or bury my unhappy love in the depths of my heart. No human power can make me surrender one of these two alternatives. "But as he and I wear the chains of marriage,--those heavy, dragging chains! but as chance, in liberating the one would not liberate the other, my life will be but one long regret, one long punishment. What I say to you is true,--I have no interest in lying to myself. I know well enough my own firmness of character to be sure of my resolution. "And then he also has so much will, so much energy, that it is to be worthy of him to imitate his energy and will, even though they should be employed in resisting him. "Oh he does not know what power it implies to have resisted a man like him. "I find a singular charm in thus accounting to myself for thoughts, of which he will for ever remain in ignorance,--in being in these mute confidences as tender, as impassioned towards him, as I am cold and reserved in his presence: I am content with my last trial on this point--with what a chilling air I received him! "But then what courage it required! But for the presence of Iris I should have been still more cold, but as she was there I felt protected against myself. "This young girl troubles me, she is so singularly careful and attentive to me,--yet, I know not why, I feel a vague presentiment that her conduct is hypocritical. She is gloomy, distracted, preoccupied. What have I done to her? Sometimes, it is true, at moments of melancholy or irritation, I am cross to her. I must think of this and watch her. "What have I learned? No, no, it is impossible,--hell would not have that. "His wife, Bertha de Brévannes, unfaithful to him! "What if the proofs which are brought to me were true? "Oh, he is shamefully betrayed! Wicked creature! with her soft and gentle air; she does not feel, then, what it is to be so happy, so honoured, as to bear his name? He--he deceived--like the lowest of men--he jested at, mocked at, perhaps,--I cannot express what I feel at this idea, which never would have occurred to me.