lighted in us, so that his flame, in consuming us one by the other,
might make us both exhale ourselves in him. I comforted Julie under the
sacrifice that necessity obliged us to make of complete happiness here
below; I pointed out to her the merit of this self-denial of an instant
in the eyes of the Eternal Remunerator of our actions. I blessed the
mournful and sublime purity of such sacrifices, since they would one
day obtain for us a more immaterial and angelic union in the eternal
atmosphere of pure spirits. I went so far as to speak of myself as
happy in my abnegation, and to sing the hymns of the martyrdom of love
to which we were by love, by greater love, condemned. I entreated Julie
not to think of my grief and not to give way to sorrow herself. I
showed a courage and a contempt for terrestrial happiness that I
possessed, alas! very often only in words. I offered up to her, as a
holocaust, all that was human in me. I elevated myself to the
immateriality of angels, so that she might not suspect a suffering or a
desire in my adoration. I besought her to seek in a tender and
sustaining religion, in the shelter of the church, in the mysterious
faith of Christ, the God of tears, in kneeling and in invocation,--the
hopes, the consolations, and the delights that I had tasted in my
childhood. She had renewed in me all my early feelings of piety. I
composed prayers for her,--calm, yet ardent prayers, that ascend like
flames to Heaven, but like flames that no wind can cause to vacillate.
I begged her to pronounce these prayers at certain hours of the day and
night, when I would repeat them also, so that our two minds, united by
the same words, might be elevated at the same hour in one
invocation.... All these were wet with my tears, that left their traces
on my words, and were doubtless more powerful and more eloquent than
they. I used to go and throw into the post by stealth these letters,
the very marrow of my bones; and felt relieved on my return, as if I
had thrown off a part of the weight of my own heart.