The Lily of the Valley (Romance Classic). Оноре де Бальзак

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       Honoré de Balzac

      The Lily of the Valley

      (Romance Classic)

      Published by

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      2019 OK Publishing

      EAN 4057664560810

      Table of Contents

       Chapter I. Two Childhoods

       Chapter II. First Love

       Chapter III. The Two Women

      To Monsieur J. B. Nacquart,

       Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine.

       Dear Doctor—Here is one of the most carefully hewn stones in the

       second course of the foundation of a literary edifice which I have

       slowly and laboriously constructed. I wish to inscribe your name

       upon it, as much to thank the man whose science once saved me as

       to honor the friend of my daily life.

      De Balzac.

      ENVOI

       Felix de Vandenesse to Madame la Comtesse Natalie de Manerville:

       I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we

       love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore

       the ordinary rules of common-sense. To smooth the frown upon their

       brow, to soften the pout upon their lips, what obstacles we

       miraculously overcome! We shed our blood, we risk our future!

       You exact the history of my past life; here it is. But remember

       this, Natalie; in obeying you I crush under foot a reluctance

       hitherto unconquerable. Why are you jealous of the sudden reveries

       which overtake me in the midst of our happiness? Why show the

       pretty anger of a petted woman when silence grasps me? Could you

       not play upon the contradictions of my character without inquiring

       into the causes of them? Are there secrets in your heart which

       seek absolution through a knowledge of mine? Ah! Natalie, you have

       guessed mine; and it is better you should know the whole truth.

       Yes, my life is shadowed by a phantom; a word evokes it; it hovers

       vaguely above me and about me; within my soul are solemn memories,

       buried in its depths like those marine productions seen in calmest

       weather and which the storms of ocean cast in fragments on the

       shore.

       The mental labor which the expression of ideas necessitates has

       revived the old, old feelings which give me so much pain when they

       come suddenly; and if in this confession of my past they break

       forth in a way that wounds you, remember that you threatened to

       punish me if I did not obey your wishes, and do not, therefore,

       punish my obedience. I would that this, my confidence, might

       increase your love.

       Until we meet,

       Felix.