"... what love was, before knowing you; I did not know what pleasure was before our mad night...."
"That's very likely. But I am doubtful about love. Is it love, that frenzy of sensual curiosity that makes us desire to know, in every aspect and in all its mysteries, the longed-for body? Why not? It is indeed, probably, the best kind of love. Bite, eat, devour! How well they realise it—those who reduce the object of their love to a little bit of bread which they swallow. The Communion—what an act of love! It's marvellous. Bouret would think that foolish, perhaps; but Bouret, right as he is in being a materialist, is wrong in not understanding materialistic mysticism. Can any one be at once more materialistic and more mystical than those Christians who believe in the Real Presence? Flesh and blood—that's what lovers want too, and they too have to content themselves with a mere symbol."
"... our mad night. It revealed a new world to me. I shall not die, like Joshua, without having seen the earthly paradise."
This phrase, despite its banality, pleased Leonor, who had begun to feel more indulgent towards his mistress.
"To write along letter like this was a great effort for her, and as it was for me that she made the effort, I should be a cad to laugh at it. That is why it would be as well to read no more. I shall ask her to give me a rendezvous too. Afterwards I shall go to Robinvast. Everything fits in well."
The assignation at Carentan was difficult to arrange. Hortense, at first delighted and ready to start, seemed to hesitate. It was too near, the town was too small. But her desire was so strong! What should she do? She hoped to find some pretext for going to Paris alone.
The truth was that, re-established in her surroundings, Hortense did not feel sufficiently bold to flout the rules voluntarily. She was one of those women who are ready to do anything, provided that circumstances determine their will. She could yield on an impulse to an imperious lover, where or when did not matter, as soon as safety was assured; she would profit by a chance, but to create chance, to organise it—that was another matter. Her escapade at Compiègne appeared to her now as one of those strokes of fortune which life does not grant twice. She dreamed of a new chance meeting with Leonor; but a concerted assignation! At the very thought, she felt herself followed, shadowed; the idea made her quite ill. To be surprised by her absurd husband—how shameful that would be!
"If Leonor came here we could easily find some means. I could have a headache, one Sunday, stay in my room, be alone in the house; besides, there is luck."
She always entrusted herself to luck. She had never yielded to any of her lovers except on the spur of the moment.
"Might we not recapture," she went on, "something of the night at Compiègne, even in a rapid abandonment?"