In Mme de nal, boldness is hidden by innocence: because she does not know love, she does not recognize it and yields to it without resistance; one could say that having lived in darkness, she is defenseless against the violent light of passion; she welcomes it, blinded, even against God, against hell; when this fire goes out, she falls back in the shadows that husbands and priests govern; she does not trust her own judgment, but the evidence overwhelms her; as soon as she sees Julien again, she once more unburdens her soul to him; her remorse and the letter her confessor wrests from her show the distance this ardent and sincere soul had to span to tear herself away from the prison society