Monsieur de Cleves could set no bounds to his affliction; he felt ill

of a fever that very night, and his distemper was accompanied with such

ill symptoms that it was thought very dangerous. Madam de Cleves was

informed of it, and came in all haste to him; when she arrived, he was

still worse; besides, she observed something in him so cold and

chilling with respect to her, that she was equally surprised and

grieved at it; he even seemed to receive with pain the services she did

him in his sickness, but at last she imagined it was perhaps only the

effect of his distemper.

When she was come to Blois where the Court then was, the Duke de

Nemours was overjoyed to think she was at the same place where he was;

he endeavoured to see her, and went every day to the Prince of Cleves's

under pretence of enquiring how he did, but it was to no purpose; she

did not stir out of her husband's room, and was grieved at heart for

the condition he was in. It vexed Monsieur de Nemours to see her under

such affliction, an affliction which he plainly saw revived the

friendship she had for Monsieur de Cleves, and diverted the passion

that lay kindling in her heart. The thought of this shocked him

severely for some time; but the extremity, to which Monsieur de

Cleves's sickness was grown, opened to him a scene of new hopes; he saw

it was probable that Madam de Cleves would be at liberty to follow her

own inclinations, and that he might expect for the future a series of

happiness and lasting pleasures; he could not support the ecstasy of

that thought, a thought so full of transport! he banished it out of his

mind for fear of becoming doubly wretched, if he happened to be

disappointed in his hopes.

In the meantime Monsieur de Cleves was almost given over by his

physicians. One of the last days of his illness, after having had a

very bad night, he said in the morning, he had a desire to sleep; but

Madam de Cleves, who remained alone in his chamber, found that instead

of taking repose he was extremely restless; she came to him, and fell

on her knees by his bedside, her face all covered with tears; and

though Monsieur de Cleves had taken a resolution not to show her the

violent displeasure he had conceived against her, yet the care she took

of him, and the sorrow she expressed, which sometimes he thought

sincere, and at other times the effect of her dissimulation and

perfidiousness, distracted him so violently with opposite sentiments

full of woe, that he could not forbear giving them vent.




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