Except this:  you have taught me that to love is the greatest of all joys; the joy of being loved comes later.  According to Camille, it is not loving to love for a short time only; the love that does not grow from day to day, from hour to hour, is a mere wretched passion.  In order to grow, love must not see its end; and she saw the end of ours, the setting of our sun of love.  When I beheld you, I understood her words, which, until then, I had disputed with all my youth, with all the ardor of my desires, with the despotic sternness of twenty years.  That grand and noble Camille mingled her tears with mine, and yet she firmly rejected the love she saw must end.  Therefore I am free to love you here on earth and in the heaven above us, as we love God.  If you loved me, you would have no such arguments as Camille used to overthrow my love.  We are both young; we could fly on equal wing across our sunny heaven, not fearing storms as that grand eagle feared them.

But ha! what am I saying? my thoughts have carried me beyond the humility of my real hopes.  Believe me, believe in the submission, the patience, the mute adoration which I only ask you not to wound uselessly.  I know, Beatrix, that you cannot love me without the loss of your self-esteem; therefore I ask for no return.  Camille once said there was some hidden fatality in names, a propos of hers.  That fatality I felt for myself on the jetty of Guerande, when I read on the shores of the ocean your name.  Yes, you will pass through my life as Beatrice passed through that of Dante.  My heart will be a pedestal for that white statue, cold, distant, jealous, and oppressive.

It is forbidden to you to love me; I know that.  You will suffer a thousand deaths, you will be betrayed, humiliated, unhappy; but you have in you a devil’s pride, which binds you to that column you have once embraced,—­you are like Samson, you will perish by holding to it.  But this I have not divined; my love is too blind for that; Camille has told it to me.  It is not my mind that speaks to you of this, it is hers.  I have no mind with which to reason when I think of you; blood gushes from my heart, and its hot wave darkens my intellect, weakens my strength, paralyzes my tongue, and bends my knees.  I can only adore you, whatever you may do to me.

Camille calls your resolution obstinacy; I defend you, and I call it virtue.  You are only the more beautiful because of it.  I know my destiny, and the pride of a Breton can rise to the height of the woman who makes her pride a virtue.

Therefore, dear Beatrix, be kind, be consoling to me.  When victims were selected, they crowned them with flowers; so do you to me; you owe me the flowers of pity, the music of my sacrifice.  Am I not a proof of your grandeur?  Will you not rise to the level of my disdained love,—­disdained in spite of its sincerity, in spite of its immortal