Studies of Manners: Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Оноре де Бальзак

my fate in your hands. Even if I must die far away from my

       beloved, I shall die purified like the Magdalen, and my soul will

       become to him the rival of his guardian angel. Can I ever forget

       yesterday’s festival? How could I wish to abdicate the glorious

       throne to which I was raised? Yesterday I washed away every stain

       in the waters of baptism, and received the Sacred Body of my

       Redeemer; I am become one of His tabernacles. At that moment I

       heard the songs of angels, I was more than a woman, born to a life

       of light amid the acclamations of the whole earth, admired by the

       world in a cloud of incense and prayers that were intoxicating,

       adorned like a virgin for the Heavenly Spouse.

       “Thus finding myself worthy of Lucien, which I had never hoped to

       be, I abjured impure love and vowed to walk only in the paths of

       virtue. If my flesh is weaker than my spirit, let it perish. Be

       the arbiter of my destiny; and if I die, tell Lucien that I died

       to him when I was born to God.”