She saw clearly that she could find no excuse, and she was compelled to confess that she ought to feel ashamed of herself; but what affected her most was the thought that her lover, the priest, must have been extremely surprised at his victory himself, and that if he too were to attempt to find an excuse for her conduct, he could discover none either.  But in proportion as she felt astonished at her shame, as she saw into what a corner she had been driven, as she dreaded the man’s scorn, for whom she had fallen so low, did she feel her love grow greater.

LXXVII.

CONSOLATIONS.

“Every fault finds its excuse in itself.  This is the sophistry in which we are richest.  The struggle of good and evil is serious, and really painful, only in the case of a man who has been brought up in a position where actions, deeds and thoughts have had the power of self-examination.”

  EMILE LECLERCQ (Une fille du peuple).

Before her fault, or if you prefer it, her fall, this was but the odd caprice of an ardent, amorous, passionate young girl whose feelings are exhilarated and excited by a licentious imagination, continually nourished by the senseless reading of the adventures of heroes, who have existed nowhere but in the brain of novelists.

Therefore, eager for the unknown, she hastens to lay hold of the first rascal who comes forward, having a little self-assurance, talkativeness and good looks, and who will be for one day the ideal she has dreamed of, if he knows how to brazen it out.

“Every woman is at heart a rake,” said the great poet Alexander Pope.

And as for those who, in spite of the heat of an ungovernable temperament, remain virtuous and chaste, we must scarcely be pleased at them on that account.

It is simply because they have not had the opportunity to sin.  The opportunity, which makes the thief, is also the touchstone of women’s virtue.  Therefore, when this blessed opportunity presents itself, although it is said to be bald, they well know how to find other hairs on it by which they seize and do not let it go again.

Certainly there are exceptions, and I am far from saying Ab una disce omnes.

You, Madame, for instance, who read me, I am convinced that you are not in that category of women of whom the Englishman Pope made this wicked remark.

Suzanne felt now possessed by a wild infatuation for the man to whom she had yielded herself almost without love; and do not young girls frequently yield themselves in this manner?  She felt herself attracted towards him by the purely physical and magnetic phenomenon which impels the female towards the male; for we shall try in vain and talk in vain, raise ourselves on our dwarfish heels, talk of the ethereal essence of our soul and the quintessence of our feelings, idealize woman and deify love, there always comes a moment when we become like the brute, and when the passion of seraphims cannot be distinguished in anything from that of man.