purpose;--still, if I had found you utterly reprobate, armed with
effrontery and astuteness, corrupt to the marrow, deaf to the voice of
repentance, I should have abandoned you to their wrath.

"The release, civil and political, which it is so hard to win, which
the police is so right to withhold for a time in the interests of
society, and which I heard you long for with all the ardor of true
repentance--is here," said the priest, taking an official-looking
paper out of his belt. "You were seen yesterday, this letter of
release is dated to-day. You see how powerful the people are who take
an interest in Lucien."

At the sight of this document Esther was so ingenuously overcome by
the convulsive agitation produced by unlooked-for joy, that a fixed
smile parted her lips, like that of a crazy creature. The priest
paused, looking at the girl to see whether, when once she had lost the
horrible strength which corrupt natures find in corruption itself, and
was thrown back on her frail and delicate primitive nature, she could
endure so much excitement. If she had been a deceitful courtesan,
Esther would have acted a part; but now that she was innocent and
herself once more, she might perhaps die, as a blind man cured may
lose his sight again if he is exposed to too bright a light. At this
moment this man looked into the very depths of human nature, but his
calmness was terrible in its rigidity; a cold alp, snow-bound and near
to heaven, impenetrable and frowning, with flanks of granite, and yet
beneficent.

Such women are essentially impressionable beings, passing without
reason from the most idiotic distrust to absolute confidence. In this
respect they are lower than animals. Extreme in everything--in their