the hours, the places where two creatures were happy, their words that
overflowed with the music of humanity, and their sweet imaginings,
that child is an incomplete creation. Yes, those two should find the
poetic dreams of their intimate double life realized in their child as
in an exquisite miniature; it should be for them a never-failing
spring of emotion, implying their whole past and their whole future.

"My poor little Helene is her father's child, the offspring of duty
and of chance. In me she finds nothing but the affection of instinct,
the woman's natural compassion for the child of her womb. Socially
speaking, I am above reproach. Have I not sacrificed my life and my
happiness to my child? Her cries go to my heart; if she were to fall
into the water, I should spring to save her, but she is not in my
heart.

"Ah! love set me dreaming of a motherhood far greater and more
complete. In a vanished dream I held in my arms a child conceived in
desire before it was begotten, the exquisite flower of life that
blossoms in the soul before it sees the light of day. I am Helene's
mother only in the sense that I brought her forth. When she needs me
no longer, there will be an end of my motherhood; with the extinction
of the cause, the effects will cease. If it is a woman's adorable
prerogative that her motherhood may last through her child's life,
surely that divine persistence of sentiment is due to the far-reaching
glory of the conception of the soul? Unless a child has lain wrapped
about from life's first beginnings by the mother's soul, the instinct
of motherhood dies in her as in the animals. This is true; I feel that
it is true. As my poor little one grows older, my heart closes. My
sacrifices have driven us apart. And yet I know, monsieur, that to
another child my heart would have gone out in inexhaustible love; for