George Sand

“ Thus my passions and my imagination are satisfied there; my heart alone and a free exchange of ideas are what I offer you."
"I refuse them," said Thérèse.
"What! you are vain enough to be jealous of a man whom you no longer love?"
"Surely not! I no longer have my life to give, and I cannot understand such a friendship as you ask of me, without exclusive devotion. Come to see me as my other friends do, I am perfectly willing; but do not ask me for any further private intimacy, even apparent."
"I understand, Thérèse; you have another lover!" ”

“ Why, I have not the slightest inclination to kill myself. I love myself as much as other men love themselves; indeed, I love myself with all my heart, I swear! But I say that my palette, the instrument of my glory, is the instrument of my torture, since I cannot work without suffering. Thereupon I seek in dissipation, not death of body or mind, but to fatigue and tranquillize my nerves. This is the whole of it, Thérèse. What is there in that that is not reasonable? I cannot work decently except when I am ready to drop with fatigue. ”

“ On the contrary, your love for Laurent has proved to me that you are a woman, and I love you better so than armed at all points against every human frailty, as I once believed you to be. Listen to me, Thérèse. I am a philosopher; that is to say, I consult common-sense and tolerant ideas rather than the prejudices of society and the romantic subtleties of sentiment. Though you were to plunge into the most deplorable disorders, I should not cease to love you and esteem you, because you are one of those women who cannot be led astray except by the heart. ”

“ You know what it was; you know that in my eyes you are not Mademoiselle Jacques, who paints excellent portraits that are much in vogue, but a superior man disguised as a woman, who, although he has never made the Academy, divines and has the art of making others divine a whole body and a whole soul from a bust, after the manner of the great sculptors of antiquity and the great painters of the Renaissance. But I say no more; you are not fond of having people tell you what they think of you. You pretend to take such talk for mere compliments. You are very proud, Thérèse. ”

“ If you wish that this friendship, which seems an insult to you now, should become agreeable to you, you have only to deserve it. Hitherto you have had no opportunity. Now the opportunity is at hand; make the most of it, part with me without weakness or bitterness. Show me the calm, sympathetic face of a man of heart, instead of this face of a child who weeps without knowing why."
"Let me weep, Thérèse," said Laurent, kneeling at her feet, "let me wash away my sin with my tears; let me kneel in adoration of this saintly compassion which has survived shattered love in your heart. ”

“ I had always known Palmer as a prudent and sensible man. When I discovered in him stores of enthusiasm and trust, I was greatly surprised. Might he not be one of those who take fire when they see others suffer, and who fall to loving the victims passionately? That is a natural instinct in those who are strong, it is the sublime pity of pure and happy hearts! There were moments when I said that to myself, in order to reconcile me with myself,—when I loved Laurent, for it was his suffering, before and above all else, that attached me to him! ”

“ We have deceived each other; you meant to take a lover; perhaps I was not the first nor the second, but no matter! you wanted a servant, a slave; you thought that my unhappy disposition, my debts, my ennui, my weariness of a life of debauchery, my illusions concerning true love, would put me at your mercy, and that I could never recover possession of myself. To carry such an enterprise to a successful issue, you needed to have a happier disposition yourself, and more patience, more flexibility, and, above all, more spirit! You have no spirit at all, Thérèse, be it said without offence. ”

“ I cannot," said Thérèse. "I feel that my heart is exhausted; I think that it is dead."
"Very well; are you willing to die?"
"It is a matter of indifference to me how soon I die, as you know; but I do not wish you to live or die with me."
"Ah! yes, you believe in the eternity of the ego! You don't want to meet me again in the other life! Poor martyr! I can understand that."
"We shall not meet again, Laurent, I am sure. Each soul goes toward its centre of attraction. Repose summons me, while you will always and everywhere be attracted by the tempest." ”

“ All the fruit of our sacred friendship will be lost, so far as I am concerned. You will have tried to cure a sick man, and will have killed him instead! And then, too, will you yourself, who are so noble and so good, be content with your work? will you not reproach yourself for not having conducted it to a better end? Be to me a Sister of Charity, who does not confine herself to dressing the hurts of a wounded man, but who strives to reconcile his soul with Heaven. Come, Thérèse, do not withdraw your faithful hands from mine, do not turn away your face, so lovely in sorrow. ”

“ There is nothing brilliant about me to dazzle you, but I have a stout heart to love you. My confidence in you is absolute. As soon as you are happy, you will be grateful, and once grateful, you will be loyal and rehabilitated forever. Say yes, Thérèse; consent to marry me and consent at once, without alarm, without scruples, without false delicacy, without distrust of yourself. I give you my life, and ask nothing of you except to believe in me. I feel that I am strong enough not to suffer from the tears which another's ingratitude may still cause you to shed. ”

“ Thérèse understood perfectly, at first sight, the spleen and jealousy which dictated this letter.
"And yet," she said to herself, "he is not in love with me. Oh! no; he certainly will never be in love with any one, with me least of all."
But as she read and reread the letter and mused upon it, Thérèse feared lest she might deceive herself in seeking to convince herself that Laurent incurred no danger with her.
"But what danger?" she said to herself; "the danger of suffering for an unsatisfied caprice? Does one suffer much for a caprice? I have no idea myself. ”

“ That is what happened to Palmer. Although the most noble-hearted and loyal of men, he had aspired to control the emotions aroused by a too delicate situation. His strength had betrayed him; who could blame him for it? And he plunged into the abyss, dragging Thérèse and Laurent himself with him. Who would not pity them—all three? All three had dreamed of scaling heaven and of reaching those serene regions where passions have naught of earthliness; but it is not given to man to reach that height; it is much for him to deem himself for an instant capable of loving without doubt or distrust. ”

“ And that is how my life goes when I allow myself to be vanquished by this giant of an artist who is within me, and from whom the poor devil who is speaking to you removes one by one, by the forceps of his will, meagre, half-dead mice! So it is much better, Thérèse, that I should live as I have chosen to live, that I should commit excesses of all sorts, and kill this gnawing worm which my fellows modestly call their inspiration, but which I call my infirmity, pure and simple. ”

“ Palmer let her weep on; seeing that tears would be beneficial to her, he had purposely provoked that outburst. When he saw that she was calmer, he knelt before her.
"Thérèse," he said, "I have caused you bitter pain, but you must give me credit for kindly intentions. I love you, Thérèse, I have always loved you, not with a blind passion, but with all the faith and all the devotion of which I am capable. I can see more plainly than ever that in your case a noble life has been ruined and shattered by the fault of others. You are, in truth, debased in the eyes of the world, but not in mine. ”

“ I would not even want him for a husband. A man of his rank always sells too dear the protection he bestows, by always making it felt. And then, I detest marriage, I detest all men, I detest everlasting pledges, promises, plans, the arranging of the future, in advance, by contracts and bargains at which Destiny always snaps its fingers. I no longer care for anything but travel, reverie, solitude, the uproar of the world, to walk through it and laugh at it, and poetry to endure the past, and God to give me hope for the future."
Sir Lionel Bridgemont's self-esteem was deeply mortified at first ”

“ Very good; then let me tell you that Mademoiselle Jacques is about to leave me, and that I am very much distressed. Do you understand?"
"No!" said Vérac, smiling; "but I am not obliged——"
"Yes, you are; you must understand what is a fact," retorted Laurent, with a vehemence that was slightly overbearing; "I have deserved what has happened to me, and I submit to it because Mademoiselle Jacques, regardless of the wrong I have done her, deigned to be a sister and a mother to me in a mortal illness which I have just gone through; so that I owe her as much gratitude as respect and affection." ”

“ I said it to myself on the first day of your passion: we loved each other too well thus, not to love each other less well under other circumstances; but that happiness could not last for me, because you no longer share it, and pain has taken the upper hand in that liaison, in which for you pain and pleasure are mingled. I simply ask you, if you become weary of my love, as you become weary of my friendship, to remember that it is not an instant of frenzy that has driven me into your arms, but an impulse of my heart and a more loving and lasting sentiment than voluptuous intoxication. ”

“ God condemns certain men of genius to wander about in the tempest and to create while in pain. I have studied you enough in your lights and shadows, in your grandeur and your weakness, to know that you are the victim of destiny, and that you should not be weighed in the same scales with most other men. Your suffering and your doubt, which you call your punishment, may be the conditions upon which your glory depends. Learn, therefore, to submit to them. You aspired with all your might to ideal happiness, and you grasped it only in your dreams. ”

“ Consent to be loved by me, and do not tell me again that it is an insult to you, for what drives me to despair is to see that you despise me too much to permit me, even in a dream, to aspire to you. That lowers me so in my own eyes that it makes me long to kill the miserable devil who so offends your moral sense. Raise me, rather, from the slough into which I have fallen, and bid me expiate my evil life and become worthy of you. Yes, leave me a ray of hope! however faint it may be, it will make another man of me. You will see, you will see, Thérèse! ”

“ Evil was to my mind a monster of low estate, the apocalyptic beast that soils with his hideous caresses the offscourings of mankind in the unhealthy bogs of society; could evil come near me, the man of fashion, the Parisian beau, the son of the Muses? Ah! fool that I was, I imagined, because my beard was perfumed and my hands neatly gloved, that my caresses would purify the great harlot of the nations, debauchery, my fiancée, who had bound me to her with chains as noble as those with which convicts are bound in the galleys! ”

“ To-day is a holiday in Thérèse's house, a day of joy and oblivion. Evidently the mistress of this house has appointed a rendezvous here to-day, and certainly it is not I whom she expects, I, a dead man! What business has a corpse in this nuptial chamber? And what will she say when she sees me here? She will say, as you do, poor old woman; she will say: 'Begone! your place is in a coffin!'"
Laurent talked as if he were in a fever. Catherine felt sorry for him. ”

“ That with which one is sated is as if it had never been. And then there is the pleasure of changing, and therein, perhaps, lies the whole secret of life. To change is to renew one's self; to be able to change is to be free. Is the artist born to be a slave, and is it not slavery to remain faithful, or simply to pledge one's faith?"
Laurent allowed himself to be persuaded by these old sophistries, always new to minds that are adrift. He soon felt that he must express them to some one, and that some one was Thérèse. So much the worse for her, since Laurent saw no one else. ”