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very enjoyment."
"What I see proves the contrary; you are alive with excitement now, but
if your desires had been entirely satisfied, you would be dead,
benumbed, motionless. I know it by experience: if you had breathed the
full ecstacy of enjoyment, as you desired, you would have found a
weak ardour only at long intervals."
"Ah! charming creature, your experience is but very small; do not trust
to it. I see that you have never known love. That which you call love's
grave is the sanctuary in which it receives life, the abode which makes
it immortal. Give way to my prayers, my lovely friend, and then you
shall know the difference between Love and Hymen. You shall see that,
if Hymen likes to die in order to get rid of life, Love on the contrary
expires only to spring up again into existence, and hastens to revive, so
as to savour new enjoyment. Let me undeceive you, and believe me
when I say that the full gratification of desires can only increase a
hundredfold the mutual ardour of two beings who adore each other."
"Well, I must believe you; but let us wait. In the meantime let us enjoy
all the trifles, all the sweet preliminaries of love. Devour thy mistress,
dearest, but abandon to me all thy being. If this night is too short we
must console ourselves to-morrow by making arrangements for another
one."
"And if our intercourse should be discovered?"
"Do we make a mystery of it? Everybody can see that we love each

other, and those who think that we do not enjoy the happiness of lovers
are precisely the only persons we have to fear. We must only be careful
to guard against being surprised in the very act of proving our love.
Heaven and nature must protect our affection, for there is no crime
when two hearts are blended in true love. Since I have been conscious
of my own existence, Love has always seemed to me the god of my
being, for every time I saw a man I was delighted; I thought that I was
looking upon one-half of myself, because I felt I was made for him and
he for me. I longed to be married. It was that uncertain longing of the
heart which occupies exclusively a young girl of fifteen. I had no
conception of love, but I fancied that it naturally accompanied marriage.
You can therefore imagine my surprise when my husband, in the very
act of making a woman of me, gave me a great deal of pain without
giving me the slightest idea of pleasure! My imagination in the convent
was much better than the reality I had been condemned to by my
husband! The result has naturally been that we have become very good
friends, but a very indifferent husband and wife, without any desires for
each other. He has every reason to be pleased with me, for I always
shew myself docile to his wishes, but enjoyment not being in those
cases seasoned by love, he must find it without flavour, and he seldom
comes to me for it.
"When I found out that you were in love with me, I felt delighted, and
gave you every opportunity of becoming every day more deeply
enamoured of me, thinking myself certain of never loving you myself.
As soon as I felt that love had likewise attacked my heart, I ill- treated
you to punish you for having made my heart sensible. Your patience
and constancy have astonished me, and have caused me to be guilty, for
after the first kiss I gave you I had no longer any control over myself. I
was indeed astounded when I saw the havoc made by one single kiss,
and I felt that my happiness was wrapped up in yours. That discovery
flattered and delighted me, and I have found out, particularly to-night,
that I cannot be happy unless you are so yourself."
"That is, my beloved, the most refined of all sentiments experienced by
love, but it is impossible for you to render me completely happy
without following in everything the laws and the wishes of nature."

The night was spent in tender discussions and in exquisite
voluptuousness, and it was not without some grief that at day-break I
tore myself from her arms to go to Gouyn. She wept for joy when she
saw that I left her without having lost a particle of my vigour, for she
did not imagine such a thing possible.
After that night, so rich in delights, ten or twelve days passed without
giving us any opportunity of quenching even a small particle of the
amorous thirst which devoured us, and it was then that a fearful
misfortune befell me.
One evening