The following is the "dilemmatic" meaning of this crisis. Either they
have known happiness, known it in a virtuous life, and are unable to
breathe in any air but that surcharged with incense, or act in any but
a balmy atmosphere of flattery and worship,--if so, how is it possible
to renounce it?--or, by a phenomenon less rare than singular, they
have found only wearying pleasures while seeking for the happiness
that escaped them--sustained in that eager chase by the irritating
satisfactions of vanity, clinging to the game like a gambler to his
double or quits; for to them these last days of beauty are their last
stake against despair.

"You have been loved, but never adored."

That speech of Theodose, accompanied by a look which read, not into
her heart, but into her life, was the key-note to her enigma, and
Flavie felt herself divined.

The lawyer had merely repeated ideas which literature has rendered
trivial; but what matter where the whip comes from, or how it is made,
if it touches the sensitive spot of a horse's hide? The emotion was in
Flavie, not in the speech, just as the noise is not in the avalanche,
though it produces it.

A young officer, two fops, a banker, a clumsy youth, and Colleville,
were poor attempts at happiness. Once in her life Madame Colleville
had dreamed of it, but never attained it. Death had hastened to put an
end to the only passion in which she had found a charm. For the last
two years she had listened to the voice of religion, which told her
that neither the Church, nor its votaries, should talk of love or
happiness, but of duty and resignation; that the only happiness lay in