To live, yes, to feel intensely, profoundly, that one exists, that one is a sentient man, created by God, that is the first, the greatest gift of love.  We can not deny, however, that love is a mystery, inexplicable, profound.  With all the chains, with all the pains, and I may even say, with all the disgust with which the world has surrounded it, buried as it is under a mountain of prejudices which distort and deprave it, in spite of all the ordure through which it has been dragged, love, eternal and fatal love, is none the less a celestial law as powerful and as incomprehensible as that which suspends the sun in the heavens.

What is this mysterious bond, stronger and more durable than iron, that can neither be seen nor touched?  What is there in meeting a woman, in looking at her, in speaking one word to her, and then never forgetting her?  Why this one rather than that one?  Invoke the aid of reason, of habit, of the senses, the head, the heart, and explain it if you can.  You will find nothing but two bodies, one here, the other there, and between them, what?  Air, space, immensity.  O blind fools! who fondly imagine yourselves men, and who reason of love!  Have you talked with it?  No, you have felt it.  You have exchanged a glance with a passing stranger, and suddenly there flies out from you something that can not be defined, that has no name known to man.  You have taken root in the ground like the seed concealed in the turf which feels the life within it, and which is on its way to maturity.

We were alone, the window was open, the murmur of a little fountain came to us from the garden.  O God! would that I could count, drop by drop, all the water that fell while we were sitting there, while she was talking and I was answering.  It was there that I became intoxicated with her to the point of madness.

It is said that there is nothing so rapid as a feeling of antipathy, but I believe that the road to love is more swiftly traversed.  How priceless the slightest words!  What signifies the conversation, when you listen for the heart to answer?  What sweetness in the glance of a woman who begins to attract you!  At first it seems as though everything that passes between you is timid and tentative, but soon there is born a strange joy, an echo answers you; you know a dual life.  What a touch!  What a strange attraction!  And when love is sure of itself and knows response in the object beloved, what serenity in the soul!  Words die on the lips, for each one knows what the other is about to say before utterance has shaped the thought.  Souls expand, lips are silent.  Oh! what silence!  What forgetfulness of all!

Although my love began the first day and had since grown to ardor, the respect I felt for Madame Pierson sealed my lips.  If she had been less frank in permitting me to become her friend, perhaps I should have been more bold, for she had made such a strong impression on me, that I never quitted her without transports of love.  But there was something in the frankness and the confidence she placed in me that checked me; moreover, it was in my father’s name that I had been treated as a friend.  That consideration rendered me still more respectful, and I resolved to prove worthy of that name.