For fifty-two days the count hovered between life and death.  Henriette and I each watched twenty-six nights.  Undoubtedly, Monsieur de Mortsauf owed his life to our nursing and to the careful exactitude with which we carried out the orders of Monsieur Origet.  Like all philosophical physicians, whose sagacious observation of what passes before them justifies many a doubt of noble actions when they are only the accomplishment of a duty, this man, while assisting the countess and me in our rivalry of devotion, could not help watching us, with scrutinizing glances, so afraid was he of being deceived in his admiration.

“In diseases of this nature,” he said to me at his third visit, “death has a powerful auxiliary in the moral nature when that is seriously disturbed, as it is in this case.  The doctor, the family, the nurses hold the patient’s life in their hands; sometimes a single word, a fear expressed by a gesture, has the effect of poison.”

As he spoke Origet studied my face and expression; but he saw in my eyes the clear look of an honest soul.  In fact during the whole course of this distressing illness there never passed through my mind a single one of the involuntary evil thoughts which do sometimes sear the consciences of the innocent.  To those who study nature in its grandeur as a whole all tends to unity through assimilation.  The moral world must undoubtedly be ruled by an analogous principle.  In an pure sphere all is pure.  The atmosphere of heaven was around my Henriette; it seemed as though an evil desire must forever part me from her.  Thus she not only stood for happiness, but for virtue; she was virtue.  Finding us always equally careful and attentive, the doctor’s words and manners took a tone of respect and even pity; he seemed to say to himself, “Here are the real sufferers; they hide their ills, and forget them.”  By a fortunate change, which, according to our excellent doctor, is common enough in men who are completely shattered, Monsieur de Mortsauf was patient, obedient, complained little, and showed surprising docility,—­he, who when well never did the simplest thing without discussion.  The secret of this submission to medical care, which he formerly so derided, was an innate dread of death; another contradiction in a man of tried courage.  This dread may perhaps explain several other peculiarities in the character which the cruel years of exile had developed.

Shall I admit to you, Natalie, and will you believe me? these fifty days and the month that followed them were the happiest moments of my life.  Love, in the celestial spaces of the soul is like a noble river flowing through a valley; the rains, the brooks, the torrents hie to it, the trees fall upon its surface, so do the flowers, the gravel of its shores, the rocks of the summits; storms and the loitering tribute of the crystal streams alike increase it.  Yes, when love comes all comes to love!