Second Part Chapter 53

Oh! my sweet, once again you have taken the wrong turning in life. To
be adored is a young girl's dream, which may survive a few
springtimes; it cannot be that of the mature woman, the wife and
mother.

To a woman's vanity it is, perhaps, enough to know that she
can command adoration if she likes. If you would live the life of a
wife and mother, return, I beg of you, to Paris. Let me repeat my
warning: It is not misfortune which you have to dread, as others do
--it is happiness.

Listen to me, my child! It is the simple things of life--bread, air,
silence--of which we do not tire; they have no piquancy which can
create distaste; it is highly-flavored dishes which irritate the
palate, and in the end exhaust it. Were it possible that I should
to-day be loved by a man for whom I could conceive a passion, such as
yours for Gaston, I would still cling to the duties and the children,
who are so dear to me. To a woman's heart the feelings of a mother are
among the simple, natural, fruitful, and inexhaustible things of life.

I can recall the day, now nearly fourteen years ago, when I embarked
on a life of self-sacrifice with the despair of a shipwrecked mariner
clinging to the mast of his vessel; now, as I invoke the memory of
past years, I feel that I would make the same choice again. No other
guiding principle is so safe, or leads to such rich reward. The
spectacle of your life, which, for all the romance and poetry with
which you invest it, still remains based on nothing but a ruthless
selfishness, has helped to strengthen my convictions. This is the last
time I shall speak to you in this way; but I could not refrain from
once more pleading with you when I found that your happiness had been
proof against the most searching of all trials.