o imagine desires without hopes would be more than madness."

"Well, answer me. If you desire to be mine entirely, and if you feel the
hope of it, which, according to your way of reasoning, is a natural
consequence, why do you always raise an impediment to your own hope?
Cease, dearest, cease to deceive yourself by absurd sophisms. Let us be
as happy as it is in nature to be, and be quite certain that the reality
of happiness will increase our love, and that love will find a new life
in our 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,