t be with them. Love has a
horror of all that does not concern itself. But the duchess returned at
last to the pomps and vanities of the court, and Clochegourde recovered
its accustomed order.

My little quarrel with the count resulted in making me more at home in
the house than ever; I could go there at all times without hindrance;
and the antecedents of my life inclined me to cling like a climbing
plant to the beautiful soul which had opened to me the enchanting world
of shared emotions. Every hour, every minute, our fraternal marriage,
founded on trust, became a surer thing; each of us settled firmly into
our own position; the countess enfolded me with her nurturing care, with
the white draperies of a love that was wholly maternal; while my love
for her, seraphic in her presence, seared me as with hot irons when
away from her. I loved her with a double love which shot its arrows of
desire, and then lost them in the sky, where they faded out of sight in
the impermeable ether. If you ask me why, young and ardent, I continued
in the deluding dreams of Platonic love, I must own to you that I was
not yet man enough to torture that woman, who was always in dread of
some catastrophe to her children, always fearing some outburst of her
husband's stormy temper, martyrized by him when not afflicted by the
illness of Jacques or Madeleine, and sitting beside one or the other of
them when her husband allowed her a little rest. The mere sound of too
warm a word shook her whole being; a desire shocked her; what she needed
was a veiled love, support mingled with tenderness,--that, in short,
which she gave to others. Then, need I tell you, who are so truly
feminine? this situation brought with it hours of delightful languor,
moments of divine sweetness and content which followed by secret
immolation. Her conscience was, if I may call it so, contagious; her
self-devotion without earthly recompense awed me by its persistence; the
living, inward piety which was the bond of her other virtues filled
the air about her with spiritual incense. Besides, I was young,--young
enough to concentrate my whole being on the kiss she allowed me too
seldom to lay upon her hand, of which she gave me only the back, and
never the palm, as though she drew the line of sensual emotions there.
No two souls ever clasped each other with so much ardor, no bodies were
ever more victoriously annihilated. Later I understood the cause of this
sufficing joy. At my ag