—Are you afraid of me then? Angels of heaven, a woman like me. Is it possible? Ah, I should have been very proud of it.
—Proud to make me sin?
—Sin! Sin! Monsieur le Curé: why do we call that a sin?
She came nearer to him. He wished to rise from his chair, but his hand went astray, he never knew how, on his servant's waist.
Oh vow of chastity, sentiments of modesty, manly dignity and priestly virtue, where were you, where were you?
LIV.
MATER SAEVA CUPIDINUM.
"Well, you have found it, this ephemeral happiness."
BABILLOT (La Mascarade humaine).
Sadness succeeds to joy, deception to illusion, the awakening to the dream, the head-ache to the debauch.