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.