“Let me see. What ought I to take? Oh! how foolish I have been with all my childish scruples, when I think that others have lowered themselves so much as even to tell us falsehoods! Yes! even were I to have died, they would not have called you to me. But, tell me, must I take linen and dresses? See, here is a warmer gown. What strange ideas, what unnumbered obstacles, they put in my head. There was good on one side and evil on the other: things which one might do, and again that which one should never do; in short, such a complication of matters, it was enough to make one wild. They were all falsehoods: there was no truth in any of them. The only real happiness is to live to love the one who loves you, and to obey the promptings of the heart. You are the personification of fortune, of beauty, and of youth, my dear Seigneur; my only pleasure is in you. I give myself to you freely, and you may do with me what you wish.” She rejoiced in this breaking-out of all the hereditary tendencies of her nature, which she thought had died within her. Sounds of distant music excited her. She saw as it were their royal departure: this son of a prince carrying her away as in a fairy-tale, and making her queen of some imaginary realm; and she was ready to follow him with her arms clasped around his neck, her head upon his breast, with such a trembling from intense feeling that her whole body grew weak from happiness. To be alone together, just they two, to abandon themselves to the galloping of horses, to flee away, and to disappear in each other’s arms. What perfect bliss it would be! “Is it not better for me to take nothing? What good would it do in reality?” He, partaking of her feverishness, was already at the door, as he replied: “No, no! Take nothing whatever. Let us go at once.” “Yes, let us go. That is the best thing to do.” And she rejoined him. But she turned round, wishing to give a last look at the chamber. The lamp was burning with the same soft light, the bouquet of hydrangeas and hollyhocks was blooming as ever, and in her work-frame the unfinished rose, bright and natural as life, seemed to be waiting for her. But the room itself especially affected her. Never before had it seemed so white and pure to her; the walls, the bed, the air even, appeared as if filled with a clear, white breath. Something within her wavered, and she was obliged to lean heavily against the back of a chair that was near her and not far from the door. “What is the matter?” asked Felicien anxiously. She did not reply, but breathed with great difficulty. Then, seized with a trembling, she could no longer bear her weight on her feet, but was forced to sit down. “Do not be anxious; it is nothing. I only want to rest for a minute and then we will go.”