Letters of Two Brides

Renee, your letter lies heavy on my heart; you have vulgarized life

for me. What need have I for finessing? Am I not mistress for all time

of this lion whose roar dies out in plaintive and adoring sighs? Ah!

how he must have raged in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin! I know

where he lives, I have his card: F., Baron de Macumer.

He has made it impossible for me to reply. All I can do is to fling

two camellias in his face. What fiendish arts does love possess--pure,

honest, simple-minded love! Here is the most tremendous crisis of a

woman's heart resolved into an easy, simple action. Oh, Asia! I have

read the Arabian Nights, here is their very essence: two flowers,

and the question is settled. We clear the fourteen volumes of

Clarissa Harlowe with a bouquet. I writhe before this letter, like a

thread in the fire. To take, or not to take, my two camellias. Yes or

No, kill or give life! At last a voice cries to me, "Test him!" And I

will test him.