Has she not left you free?
Has she gone with jealous feet to watch you in the salons of Paris?
Has she imposed upon you the labors of some high emprise, such as paladins sought voluntarily in the olden time?
No, she asks a perfectly spiritual and mystic alliance.

Come to me when you are unhappy, wounded, weary.

Tell me all, hide nothing; I have balms for all your ills.

I am twenty years of age, dear friend, but I have the sense of fifty, and unfortunately I have known through the experience of another all the horrors and the delights of love.

I know what baseness the human heart can contain, what infamy; yet I myself am an honest girl.