Rose here interrupted me:
"If she loves, if she suffers, why does she refuse herself?"
"There are a thousand degrees in love; and a woman of feeling always suffers when she inflicts suffering."
I examined my mind for a moment and, as though it were uttering its thoughts backwards, I continued, slowly:
"It is sometimes our duty to inflict suffering. The man's instinct is always more or less blinded by desire; he always, either craftily or brutally, proposes. It is for us to dispose. We are all-powerful. Peace or discord springs from our will. He is not as well fitted to choose as we are, because he has not the same reasons for wishing to see comradeship follow upon passion, to see rapture give way to security. If we are one day to be the mother of the child, are we not first of all the mother of love? Are we not at the same time the cradle and the tabernacle of that god? In any happy couple, is love not cast in the woman's image much more than in the man's? The man has a thousand things that attract and retain him elsewhere; his temperament is more prodigal and less considerate than ours. It is in the woman that love dwells; her sensitive nature leads her to a higher knowledge in the art of loving; and the infinite details of her tenderness can make her seem perfect in her lover's eyes when they do not render her exclusive...."
Struck by this last word, Rose exclaimed:
"What! According to you, love should not be exclusive!" And, lowering her voice, she asked, "Are you not faithful?"
"We do not even think of being faithful as long as we love. We should blush to offer love the cold homage of fidelity: it is a word devoid of meaning in the presence of a genuine love. In love fidelity is like a chain disappearing under the flowers. If it is one day seen, that means that the flowers are faded."
I kneel beside her and, taking her in my arms, kiss her fondly. Through the exquisite silence of the day, the church-bell rings out the Angelus in notes of gold. The garden is flooded with sunshine; and the marigolds, the phlox, the jasmines, the scabious and the mallows push their heads above their white railing. Each eager heart turns towards the light.
"You see, my Roseline: just as the great sun shines in his glory and governs the realm of flowers, so love must be king in the lives of us women! He reigns and is independent of any but himself. Only," I added, laughing, "though we accept him as king, we must not make a tyrant of him. Poor love! I wonder what wretched transformation he must have undergone through the ages for us to have managed to invest him with the most selfish of human sentiments, the sense of property! So far from that, we ought mutually to respect the life that goes with ours and never seek to restrain it."