The next day I told Lucie it was healthier for me to wake early, and she believed me; thus each morning began sooner.
In this way I secured three hours instead of two in her company, though my cunning did nothing to slow their lightning-swift passage.
Her kind old mother would sometimes appear, smiling at her daughter's place beside me, thanking me for "teaching her goodness."
Lucie kissed her cheeks and carried on her chatter, unchanged by the intrusion.
Whether in or out of her mother's presence, she was always the same without the slightest change.
Her nearness was torment and delight in equal measure.
When she leaned close, her breath stirred my cheek, and the world narrowed to a single point before I forced myself back into stillness.
She once said she wished she were my sister; I smiled, though my blood burned.
In those risqué moments I kept enough command to avoid even the smallest contact.
I knew that a single kiss might blow up the whole fragile edifice of my reserve.
Each time she left, I marvelled at my composure and promised myself another victory the next morning. And every morning, the battle began anew, sweeter and more perilous than the last.
I had stretched my virtue as far as it would go.
After ten mornings of Lucie's visits, I saw the choice clearly: either I sent Lucie away or become a monster in my own eyes.
I chose virtue for a practical reason- I doubted vice would oblige me.
If ever I forced her to defend herself, she would turn heroine, the open door would betray us, and I would earn only shame and a useless repentance.
The thought frightened me.
Yet, desperate to end my torture, I could not decide how.
I could no longer resist the effect made upon my senses by this beautiful girl who, scarcely dressed and fresh from sleep, ran gaily into my room, bent her head toward me, and dropped her words upon my lips.
In those dangerous moments I turned my head aside, and in her innocence she reproached me:
"Why are you afraid of me? I feel myself perfectly safe."
I'd answer, "I could not possibly fear a child."
"A child?" she'd say. "a difference of two years is of no account."
Standing at bay, exhausted, conscious that every instant increased the ardour which was devouring me, I resolved to entreat from herself the discontinuance of her visits.
This resolution appeared to me sublime and infallible.
I slept badly on it, tortured by her image and by the thought that I would see her for the last time.
I fancied that Lucie would not only grant my prayer, but that she would conceive for me the highest esteem.
In the morning, it was barely day-light, Lucie beaming, radiant with beauty, a happy smile brightening her pretty mouth, and her splendid hair in the most fascinating disorder, burst into my room.
She rushed with open arms towards my bed; but when she saw my pale, dejected, and unhappy countenance, she stopped short, and her beautiful face taking an expression of sadness and anxiety:
"What ails you?" she asked, with deep sympathy.
"I have had no sleep through the night:"
"And why?"
"Because I have made up my mind to impart to you a project which, although fraught with misery to myself, will at least secure me your esteem."
"But if your project is to ensure my esteem it ought to make you very cheerful. Only tell me, reverend sir, why, after calling me 'thou' yesterday, you treat me today respectfully, like a lady? What have I done? I will get your coffee, and you must tell me everything after you have drunk it; I long to hear you."
She fetched the coffee. While I drank, she kept up a light assault of chatter until I smiled; she clapped her hands for joy.
She then set the room to rights, crossed to the door and shut it against the wind.
"It rattles," she said. "May I sit near you to hear you better?"
I could not refuse; I felt almost lifeless.
I told her everything— the fearful state in which her beauty has thrown me, all the suffering I have experienced in trying to master my ardent wish to give her some proof of my love.
I explained to her that, unable to endure such torture any longer, I saw no other safety but in entreating her not to see me anymore.
The truth of my love and the heroism of restraint lent me a peculiar eloquence.
I endeavored also to make her realize the fearful consequences which might follow a course different to the one I was proposing, and how miserable we might be.
But as I spoke, my throat tightened, and tears escaped before I could stop them.
She gasped softly, tore back the coverlet to reach me, and with the gentlest hands wiped the tears from my face.
She didn't think that in so doing she uncovered two globes, the beauty of which might have caused the wreck of the most experienced pilot.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then she said quietly, "Your tears make me very unhappy, and I had never supposed that I could cause them."
"All you have just told me," She added, "proves the sincerity of your great love for me, but I cannot imagine why you should be in such dread of a feeling which affords me the most intense pleasure."
"You wish to banish me from your presence because you stand in fear of your love, but what would you do if you hated me? Am I guilty because I have pleased you?"
I had no answer.
She continued, "If it is a crime to have won your affection, I can assure you that I did not think I was committing a criminal action, and therefore you cannot conscientiously punish me."
She went on, words tumbling out in a rush of innocence and wonder: "Yet I cannot conceal the truth; I am very happy to be loved by you. As for the danger we run, when we love, danger which I can understand, we can set it at defiance, if we choose, and I wonder at my not fearing it, ignorant as I am, while you, a learned man, think it so terrible."
"I am astonished that love, which is not a disease, should have made you ill, and that it should have exactly the opposite effect upon me. Is it possible that I am mistaken, and that my feeling towards you should not be love?"
"You saw me very cheerful when I came in this morning; it is because I have been dreaming all night, but my dreams did not keep me awake; only several times I woke up to ascertain whether my dream was true, for I thought I was near you; and every time, finding that it was not so, I quickly went to sleep again in the hope of continuing my happy dream, and every time I succeeded. After such a night, was it not natural for me to be cheerful this morning?"
"My dear abbe, if love is a torment for you I am very sorry, but would it be possible for you to live without love? I will do anything you order me to do, but, even if your cure depended upon it, I would not cease to love you, for that would be impossible."
"Yet if to heal your sufferings it should be necessary for you to love me no more, you must do your utmost to succeed, for I would much rather see you alive without love, than dead for having loved too much."
She concluded with this entreaty: "Only try to find some other plan, for the one you have proposed makes me very miserable. Think of it, there may be some other way which will be less painful. Suggest one more practicable, and depend upon Lucie's obedience."
These words, so true, so artless, so innocent, made me realize the immense superiority of nature's eloquence over that of philosophical intellect.
For the first time I folded this angelic being in my arms, exclaiming, "Yes, dearest Lucie, yes, thou hast it in thy power to afford the sweetest relief to my devouring pain; abandon to my ardent kisses thy divine lips which have just assured me of thy love."
An hour passed in the most delightful silence, which nothing interrupted except these words murmured now and then by Lucie, "Oh, God! is it true? is it not a dream?"
Yet I respected her innocence, especially as she yielded with such trust and without a trace of resistance.
At last, extricating herself gently from my arms, she said, with some uneasiness, "My heart begins to speak, I must go;"
A moment later she was composed again, smoothing her hair just as her mother entered.
The good woman, seeing the calm on my face, complimented me upon my good looks and my bright countenance, and told Lucie to dress herself to attend mass.
She returned glowing, proud of her miracle.
The healthy appearance I was then showing convinced her of my love much better than the pitiful state in which she had found me in the morning.
she said, laughing. "If my love can make you happy, then be happy- there's nothing I would ever refuse you."
After she left, I sat motionless, wavering between happiness and fear.
I understood that I was standing on the very brink of the abyss, and that nothing but a most extraordinary determination could prevent me from falling headlong into it.
I stayed at Paséan until the end of September.
The final eleven nights were hers. Her mother slept soundly; Lucie did not.
Each night she came, barefoot, fearless, certain of her welcome.
I held her with gentleness and I enjoyed with her the most delicious hours.
The burning ardour of my love was increased by the abstinence to which I condemned myself.
She could not fully enjoy the sweetness of the forbidden fruit unless I plucked it without reserve, and the effect produced by our constantly lying in each other's arms was too strong for a young girl to resist.
She tried, with the cleverness of affection, to convince me that all boundaries had already fallen; but Bettina's lessons had been too efficient to allow me to go on a wrong scent.
My restraint, once a virtue, had turned into a kind of cruelty neither of us could name.
I reached the end of my stay without yielding entirely to the temptation she so fondly threw in my way.
I promised her to return in the spring; our farewell was tender and very sad.
I left her in a state of mind and of body which must have been the cause of her misfortunes, which, twenty years after, I had occasion to reproach myself with in Holland, and which will ever remain upon my conscience.
A few days after returning to Venecia, I fell back into my old habits and renewed my pursuit of Angela in the hope that I would obtain from her, at least, as much as Lucie had granted to me.
A certain dread which to-day I can no longer trace in my nature, a sort of terror of the consequences which might have a blighting influence upon my future, prevented me from giving myself up to complete enjoyment.
I do not know whether I have ever been a truly honest man, but I am fully aware that the feelings I fostered in my youth were by far more upright than those I have, as I lived on, forced myself to accept.
A wicked philosophy throws down too many of these barriers which we call prejudices.