Is it not a fact that everybody here loves him? Have I not observed the looks of all these village girls fixed on him with eager desire? It would have been easy for him to make his choice among the prettiest, but he has seen me only.
He is a priest, but what does that matter? is he not a man? And this man as handsome as a god, I feel that I love him much more than a lover ought to be loved; for I love not only for the happiness of loving him and being loved by him, but also from pride, because I am proud of him, because I admire his fine and noble nature, so open, so sweet, so charming, so audacious, which, led astray into this false and thankless position, must find itself so unhappy. Then, I was so affected the first time that my look met his, I felt that all my being was his, but especially my inward feelings, my spirit, my soul, and my sentiments.
And in this way there is a great difference in man and in woman in their love.
In man, possession most frequently causes passion to disappear; the reality kills the ideal; the awakening, the dream; in woman on the other hand, it nearly always enhances, for the first time at any rate, the fascination of being loved, for she attaches herself to him in proportion to the trouble, the shame, the sacrifice.
For with man, love is but an episode, while with woman it is her whole life.
LXXVIII.
FALSE ALARM.
"She's there, say'st thou? What, can that be the maid
Whose pure, fresh face attracted me but now,
When I beheld her in her home; alas,
And can the flower so quickly fade?"…
DELPHINE GAY.
Suzanne, who had passed a sleepless night, was fast asleep in the morning, when her father burst into her room like a hurricane.