One hard truth emerges from all that you have said.  Only men who are really great know how to love, and now I understand the reason of this.  Man obeys two forces—­one sensual, one spiritual.  Weak or inferior men mistake the first for the last, whilst great souls know how to clothe the merely natural instinct in all the graces of the spirit.  The very strength of this spiritual passion imposes severe self-restraint and inspires them with reverence for women.  Clearly, feeling is sensitive in proportion to the calibre of the mental powers generally, and this is why the man of genius alone has something of a woman’s delicacy.  He understands and divines woman, and the wings of passion on which he raises her are restrained by the timidity of the sensitive spirit.  But when the mind, the heart, and the senses all have their share in the rapture which transports us—­ah! then there is no falling to earth, rather it is to heaven we soar, alas! for only too brief a visit.

Such, dear soul, is the philosophy of the first three months of my married life.  Felipe is angelic.  Without figure of speech, he is another self, and I can think aloud with him.  His greatness of soul passes my comprehension.  Possession only attaches him more closely to me, and he discovers in his happiness new motives for loving me.  For him, I am the nobler part of himself.  I can foresee that years of wedded life, far from impairing his affection, will only make it more assured, develop fresh possibilities of enjoyment, and bind us in more perfect sympathy.  What a delirium of joy!

It is part of my nature that pleasure has an exhilarating effect on me; it leaves sunshine behind, and becomes a part of my inner being.  The interval which parts one ecstasy from another is like the short night which marks off our long summer days.  The sun which flushed the mountain tops with warmth in setting finds them hardly cold when it rises.  What happy chance has given me such a destiny?  My mother had roused a host of fears in me; her forecast, which, though free from the alloy of vulgar pettiness, seemed to me redolent of jealousy, has been falsified by the event.  Your fears and hers, my own—­all have vanished in thin air!

We remained at Chantepleurs seven months and a half, for all the world like a couple of runaway lovers fleeing the parental warmth, while the roses of pleasure crowned our love and embellished our dual solitude.  One morning, when I was even happier than usual, I began to muse over my lot, and suddenly Renee and her prosaic marriage flashed into my mind.  It seemed to me that now I could grasp the inner meaning in your life.  Oh! my sweet, why do we speak a different tongue?  Your marriage of convenience and my love match are two worlds, as widely separated as the finite from infinity.  You still walk the earth, whilst I range the heavens!  Your sphere is human, mine divine!  Love crowned me queen, you reign by reason and duty.  So lofty are the regions where I soar, that a fall would shiver me to atoms.