And do you think that I no longer know how to love you?
Would you have me refuse you the very breath of life that will truly make you a man, after all my fervent wishes for your return to life?
I have enough affection for you both to consent to your loving one another....
Besides, I repeat it, nature knows what she does.

Instinct is a sure guide, it always tends to what is useful and trite.

I should have been a sorry husband, and it is best that I should keep to my work as an old _savant_; whereas you are young and represent the future, all fruitful and happy life." Pierre shuddered as he heard this, for his old fears returned to him.

Had not the priesthood for ever cut him off from life, had not his long years of chaste celibacy robbed him of his manhood?
"Fruitful and happy life!" he muttered, "ah! if you only knew how distressed I feel at the idea that I do not perhaps deserve the gift you so lovingly offer me! You are worth more than I am; you would have given her a larger heart, a firmer brain, and perhaps, too, you are really a younger man than myself....

There is still time, brother, keep her, if with you she is likely to be happier and more truly and completely loved.