Volume I Part 55 (1/2)
Our desires revive; she casts a look upon ht She see off everything which makes the heat unpleasant and interferes with our pleasure, she bounds upon me It is more than amorous fury, it is desperate lust I share her frenzy, I hug her with a sort of deliriu ions of bliss but, at the very , she fails me, moves off, slips away, and comes back to work off my excitement with a hand which strikes me as cold as ice
”Ah, thou cruel, beloved wo with the fire of love, and thou deprivest thyself of the only re calm to thy senses! Thy lovely hand is more humane than thou art, but thou has not enjoyed the felicity that thy hand has given ht of my heart, coain, but only in that char retreat froreatest enjoy thus, her very soul was breathing forth the htly in her ar in an ocean of bliss
Silence lasted rather a long time, but that unnatural felicity was imperfect, and increased my excitement
”How canst thou complain,” she said tenderly, ”when it is to that very imperfection of our enjoyment that we are indebted for its continuance?
I loved thee a few minutes since, now I love thee a thousand times more, and perhaps I should love thee less if thou hadst carried hest lireat is thy error!
Thou art feeding upon sophisms, and thou leavest reality aside; I ive real felicity Desires constantly renewed and never fully satisfied are more terrible than the torments of hell”
”But are not these desires happiness when they are always accompanied by hope?”
”No, if that hope is always disappointed It becomes hell itself, because there is no hope, and hope must die when it is killed by constant deception”
”Dearest, if hope does not exist in hell, desires cannot be found there either; for to iine desires without hopes would be more than madness”
”Well, answer me If you desire to be mine entirely, and if you feel the hope of it, which, according to your way of reasoning, is a natural consequence, why do you always raise an impediment to your own hope?
Cease, dearest, cease to deceive yourself by absurd sophisms Let us be as happy as it is in nature to be, and be quite certain that the reality of happiness will increase our love, and that love will find a new life in our very enjoyment”
”What I see proves the contrary; you are alive with excitement now, but if your desires had been entirely satisfied, you would be dead, benumbed, motionless I know it by experience: if you had breathed the full ecstacy of enjoyment, as you desired, you would have found a weak ardour only at long intervals”
”Ah! char creature, your experience is but very small; do not trust to it I see that you have never known love That which you call love's grave is the sanctuary in which it receives life, the abode which makes it immortal Give way to my prayers, my lovely friend, and then you shall know the difference between Love and Hyet rid of life, Love on the contrary expires only to spring up again into existence, and hastens to revive, so as to savour new enjoyment Let ratification of desires can only increase a hundredfold the s who adore each other”
”Well, I must believe you; but let us wait In the meantime let us enjoy all the trifles, all the sweet preliminaries of love Devour thyIf this night is too short we ements for another one”
”And if our intercourse should be discovered?”
”Do we make a mystery of it? Everybody can see that we love each other, and those who think that we do not enjoy the happiness of lovers are precisely the only persons we have to fear Wesurprised in the very act of proving our love
Heaven and nature must protect our affection, for there is no crime when two hearts are blended in true love Since I have been conscious of my own existence, Love has always see, for every ti upon one-half of myself, because I felt I was ed to beof the heart which occupies exclusively a young girl of fifteen I had no conception of love, but I fancied that it naturally accoinea wo ination in the convent was much better than the reality I had been condemned to by my husband! The result has naturally been that we have becoood friends, but a very indifferent husband and wife, without any desires for each other
He has every reason to be pleased with me, for I always shewin those cases seasoned by love, he must find it without flavour, and he seldom comes to me for it
”When I found out that you were in love with ave you every opportunity of becoyou myself As soon as I felt that love had likewise attackedmade my heart sensible Your patience and constancy have astonished uilty, for after the first kiss I gave you I had no longer any control over myself I was indeed astounded when I saw the havoc le kiss, and I felt that my happiness rapped up in yours That discovery flattered and delighted ht, that I cannot be happy unless you are so yourself”
”That is, my beloved, the most refined of all sentiments experienced by love, but it is impossible for you to renderthe laws and the wishes of nature”
The night was spent in tender discussions and in exquisite voluptuousness, and it was not without soo to Gouyn She wept for joy when she saw that I left her without having lost a particle ofpossible