"By what other name can you call a love that is not eternal, that does
not unite us in the future life of the Christian, to the being we
love?"

"Ah, I will be a Catholic!" she cried in a hollow, vehement tone, that
would have earned her the mercy of the Lord.

"Can a girl who has received neither the baptism of the Church nor
that of knowledge; who can neither read, nor write, nor pray; who
cannot take a step without the stones in the street rising up to
accuse her; noteworthy only for the fugitive gift of beauty which
sickness may destroy to-morrow; can such a vile, degraded creature,
fully aware too of her degradation--for if you had been ignorant of it
and less devoted, you would have been more excusable--can the intended
victim to suicide and hell hope to be the wife of Lucien de Rubempre?"

Every word was a poniard thrust piercing the depths of her heart. At
every word the louder sobs and abundant tears of the desperate girl
showed the power with which light had flashed upon an intelligence as
pure as that of a savage, upon a soul at length aroused, upon a nature
over which depravity had laid a sheet of foul ice now thawed in the
sunshine of faith.

"Why did I not die!" was the only thought that found utterance in the
midst of a torrent of ideas that racked and ravaged her brain.

"My daughter," said the terrible judge, "there is a love which is
unconfessed before men, but of which the secret is received by the
angels with smiles of gladness."