The old woman took Elizabeth's hand and held it.
"My child, if you prayed to God, as I do, your hope would be strengthened. Illicit passions can never bring happiness. Happiness means peace in one's heart. They are powerless to insure that."
"They bring with them a more passionate existence. I do not understand. That people desire them and die for them suffices to make them endure."
"If you could have seen him, listened to him, you would not speak thus. It is not on my account that he came to Grenoble. He thought he would meet the children there. He had no idea that you would remain so late in the mountains. And this morning, instead of leaving for Italy, he came up here without further reflection, in the hope of seeing his children. He has forgotten nothing."
"Oh, Mother, and me?"
"You, Elizabeth? Did you not understand that it was because of you that he has never tried to see his children until now?"
"He never asked to see them. If he had asked, I should not have refused. He could not have them come to him, however, in Paris."
"Listen, Elizabeth. All the time he was overwhelming me with questions about them. He was obsessed with the thought of them."
"And he has never given them any indication that he was still alive."
"Because he did not want to trouble your life, to impose painful obligations upon you, or remind you of a tie which he thinks is sorrowful to you."