save him whose shame it chiefly bespoke, the girl's uncle, Fulbert.
The truth was often enough hinted to him, and by many persons, but
he could not believe it, partly, as I have said, by reason of his
boundless love for his niece, and partly because of the well-known
continence of my previous life. Indeed we do not easily suspect
shame in those whom we most cherish, nor can there be the blot of
foul suspicion on devoted love. Of this St. Jerome in his epistle
to Sabinianus (Epist. 48) says: "We are wont to be the last to know
the evils of our own households, and to be ignorant of the sins of
our children and our wives, though our neighbours sing them aloud."
But no matter how slow a matter may be in disclosing itself, it is
sure to come forth at last, nor is it easy to hide from one what is
known to all. So, after the lapse of several months, did it happen
with us. Oh, how great was the uncle's grief when he learned the
truth, and how bitter was the sorrow of the lovers when we were
forced to part! With what shame was I overwhelmed, with what
contrition smitten because of the blow which had fallen on her I
loved, and what a tempest of misery burst over her by reason of my
disgrace! Each grieved most, not for himself, but for the other.
Each sought to allay, not his own sufferings, but those of the one
he loved. The very sundering of our bodies served but to link our
souls closer together; the plentitude of the love which was denied
to us inflamed us more than ever. Once the first wildness of shame
had passed, it left us more shameless than before, and as shame
died within us the cause of it seemed to us ever more desirable.
And so it chanced with us as, in the stories that the poets tell,
it once happened with Mars and Venus when they were caught together.

It was not long after this that Héloïse found that she was
pregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmost exultation,