The woman who loves is, in relation to
the man she loves, in the position of a somnambulist to whom the
magnetizer should give the painful power, when she ceases to be the
mirror of the world, of being conscious as a woman of what she has
seen as a somnambulist. Passion raises the nervous tension of a woman
to the ecstatic pitch at which presentiment is as acute as the insight
of a clairvoyant. A wife knows she is betrayed; she will not let
herself say so, she doubts still--she loves so much! She gives the lie
to the outcry of her own Pythian power. This paroxysm of love deserves
a special form of worship.
In noble souls, admiration of this divine phenomenon will always be a
safeguard to protect them from infidelity. How should a man not
worship a beautiful and intellectual creature whose soul can soar to
such manifestations?
By one in the morning Hortense was in a state of such intense anguish,
that she flew to the door as she recognized her husband's ring at the
bell, and clasped him in her arms like a mother.
"At last--here you are!" cried she, finding her voice again. "My
dearest, henceforth where you go I go, for I cannot again endure the
torture of such waiting.--I pictured you stumbling over a curbstone,
with a fractured skull! Killed by thieves!--No, a second time I know I
should go mad.--Have you enjoyed yourself so much?--And without me!
--Bad boy!"
"What can I say, my darling? There was Bixiou, who drew fresh
caricatures for us; Leon de Lora, as witty as ever; Claude Vignon, to
whom I owe the only consolatory article that has come out about the
Montcornet statue.
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