For years and years she
had lived in that hell, hoping, hoping still, having within her such a
power of life, such an ardent need of affection, that she continued
waiting for happiness, ever thinking, at the faintest breath, that it was
about to enter.
"I swear to you, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "that I could not do
otherwise than I have done. I was too unhappy: my whole being longed for
someone who would care for me. And when my friend the first time told me
that he loved me it was all over--I was his forever. Ah! to be loved, to
be spoken to gently, to have someone near you who is always solicitous
and amiable; to know that in absence he thinks of you, that there is a
heart somewhere in which you live . . . Ah! if it be a crime, Monsieur
l'Abbe, I cannot, cannot feel remorse for it. I will not even say that I
was urged to it; I simply say that it came to me as naturally as my
breath, because it was as necessary to my life!"
She had carried her hand to her lips as though to throw a kiss to the
world, and Pierre felt deeply disturbed in presence of this lovely woman,
who personified all the ardour of human passion, and at the same time a
feeling of deep pity began to arise within him.
"Poor woman!" he murmured.
"It is not to the priest that I am confessing," she resumed; "it is to
the man that I am speaking, to a man by whom I should greatly like to be
understood.
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