Thus, and these are extreme afflictions, this hapless
wight expiates, and her expiation is brought upon her by
her grandeur. Whatever she may do, she has to love. She
is condemned to the light. She has to condole, she has to
succour, she has to devote herself, she has to be kind. A
woman who has lost her modesty, fain would know love
no more; impossible. The refluxes of the heart are as
inevitable as those of the sea; the lights of the heart are as
fixed as those of the night.

There is within us that which we can never lose. Abnegation,
sacrifice, tenderness, enthusiasm, all these rays
turn against the woman within her inmost self and attack
and burn her. All these virtues remain to avenge themselves
upon her. When she would have been a wife, she is
a slave. Hers is the hopeless, thankless task of lulling a
brigand in the blue nebulousness of her illusions and of
decking Mandrin with a starry rag. She is the sister of
charity of crime. She loves, alas! She endures her
inadmissible divinity; she is magnanimous and thrills at so
being. She is happy with a horrible happiness. She enters
backwards into indignant Eden.

We do not sufficiently reflect upon this that is within us
and cannot be lost.

Prostitution, vice, crime, what matters!

Night may become as black as it likes, the spark is still