Well, it appears to me that we, you and I, are now face to face with
one of these moments!"
THE DUCHESS: "So I, too, believe."
THE ABBE: "We must take care, then, that it be an apotheosis. That
is why I want--Mon Dieu, madame! how shall I say it to you? Where
shall I go to find the chosen words, the words of pure gold, of
diamonds, the immaculate words that are worthy of us? All that you
are, all that you are worth, I know, and I alone know. You have
opened, that I might read it, the book of hours that is your mind. I
am in no wise disquieted about you or your future; yet, that I may
be fully reassured before we part, I wish, I wish you to tell me, to
declare to me, that you are at this very moment in absolute repose,
calm as a lake."
And so Monsieur l'Abbe goes on for another page. If it be said that this
ornate eloquence is merely professional, I reply that his brother, the
atheist doctor, and the Duchess herself, are quite as copious in their
rhetoric, and scarcely less ornate.
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