He
understood perfectly my love for my mistress and had several times
intimated that bonds of this kind were sacred to a friend, and that he
would be incapable of an attempt to supplant me even if he loved the same
woman. In short, I had perfect confidence in him and I had perhaps never
pressed the hand of any human creature more cordially than his.
My glance was eager and curious as I scrutinized this man whom I had
heard speak of love as an antique hero and whom I had caught caressing my
mistress. It was the first time in my life I had seen a monster; I
measured him with a haggard eye to see how he was made. He whom I had
known since he was ten years old, with whom I had lived in the most
perfect friendship, it seemed to me I had never seen him. Allow me a
comparison.
There is a Spanish play, familiar to all the world, in which a stone
statue comes to sup with a debauchee, sent thither by divine justice. The
debauchee puts a good face on the matter and forces himself to affect
indifference; but the statue asks for his hand, and when he has extended
it he feels himself seized by a mortal chill and falls in convulsions.
Whenever I have loved and confided in any one, either friend or mistress,
and suddenly discover that I have been deceived, I can only describe the
effect produced on me by comparing it to the clasp of that marble hand.
It is the actual impression of marble, it is as though a man of stone had
kissed me.
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