And the lover? He is no better: he has loved twenty since; the deep sea of oblivion has passed between them, and among so many vanished mistresses, can he precisely remember her name?
Suzanne did not say all this to herself, she was ignorant of the whirlpools of life, but she felt instinctively that she was about to be precipated into an abyss.
She was not perverse, she was merely frivolous and coquettish, but she had received a vicious education. Her imagination only had been corrupted, her heart had remained till then untainted. It was a good ear of corn which somehow or another had made its way into the field of tares.
She reproached herself bitterly therefore for the shameful facility with which she had yielded herself to the priest, and she sought for an excuse to try and palliate her fault in her own eyes.
But she was unable to discover any genuine excuses. A young girl is pardoned for yielding herself to her lover in a moment of forgetfulness and excitement, because she hopes that marriage will atone for her fault.
But what had she to claim? What could she expect from this Curé?
Again a young wife is pardoned for deceiving an old husband, or a husband who is worthless, debauched and brutal, and for seeking a friend abroad whom she cannot find at her fire-side; but she? Whom had she deceived? Her father, who though severe, adored her. Whom had she dishonoured? The white hairs of that worthy, brave old man.
She saw clearly that she could find no excuse, and she was compelled to confess that she ought to feel ashamed of herself; but what affected her most was the thought that her lover, the priest, must have been extremely surprised at his victory himself, and that if he too were to attempt to find an excuse for her conduct, he could discover none either. But in proportion as she felt astonished at her shame, as she saw into what a corner she had been driven, as she dreaded the man's scorn, for whom she had fallen so low, did she feel her love grow greater.