In the morning, music, reading; in the evening, cards with the
aunt as in the days of my father; and she, always there smiling, her
presence filling my heart. By what road, O Providence! have you led me?
What irrevocable destiny am I to accomplish? What! a life so free, an
intimacy so charming, so much repose, such buoyant hope! O God! Of what
do men complain? What is there sweeter than love?
To live, yes, to feel intensely, profoundly, that one exists, that one is
man, created by God, that is the first, the greatest gift of love. We can
not deny, however, that love is a mystery, inexplicable, profound. With
all the chains, with all the pains, and I may even say, with all the
disgust with which the world has surrounded it, buried as it is under a
mountain of prejudices which distort and deprave it, in spite of all the
ordure through which it has been dragged, love, eternal and fatal love,
is none the less a celestial law as powerful and as incomprehensible as
that which suspends the sun in the heavens. What is this mysterious bond,
stronger and more durable than iron, that can neither be seen nor
touched? What is there in meeting a woman, in looking at her, in speaking
one word to her, and then never forgetting her? Why this one rather than
that one? Invoke the aid of reason, or habit, of the senses, the head,
the heart, and explain it if you can. You will find nothing but two
bodies, one here, the other there, and between them, what? Air, space,
immensity.
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