Happily
for us, most men know nothing about it; they don't read us like that
dreadful author."
"Your letter told me all," replied Camille; "happiness ignores
everything but itself. You boasted too much of yours to be really
happy. Truth is deaf, dumb, and blind where love really is.
Consequently, seeing very plainly that you have your reasons for
abandoning Conti, I have feared to have you here. My dear, Calyste is
an angel; he is as good as he is beautiful; his innocent heart will
not resist your eyes; already he admires you too much not to love you
at the first encouragement; your coldness can alone preserve him to
me. I confess to you, with the cowardice of true passion, that if he
were taken from me I should die. That dreadful book of Benjamin
Constant, 'Adolphe,' tells us only of Adolphe's sorrows; but what
about those of the woman, hey? The man did not observe them enough to
describe them; and what woman would have dared to reveal them? They
would dishonor her sex, humiliate its virtues, and pass into vice. Ah!
I measure the abyss before me by my fears, by these sufferings that
are those of hell.
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