joys that they had savoured. The word love signified
hatred. The invisible doubles the visible, and it is
lugubrious. Those who shared their raptures, those to whom
they gave all, received all and accepted nothing. They--the
fallen ones--sowed their seed in ashes. They were
deserted even as they were being embraced. Abandonment
sniggered behind the mask of the kiss.

And now, what are they to do? They must perforce
continue to love.




V.



Oh! if they could, the unhappy creatures, if they could
put from them their hearts, their dreams, harden themselves
with a hardness that could not be softened, be forever cold
and passionless, tear out their entrails, and, since they are
filth, become monsters! If they could no longer think! If
they could ignore the flower, efface the star, stop up the
mouth of the pit, close heaven! They would at least no
longer suffer. But no. They have a right to marriage, they
have a right to the heart, they have a right to torture, they
have a right to the ideal. No chilling of their hearts can put
out the internal fire. However cold they may be they burn.
This, we have said, is at once their misery and their crown.