When Desgenais left me I became so desperate that I resolved to put an
end to my trouble. After a terrible struggle horror got the better of
love. I wrote my mistress that I would never see her again and begged her
not to try to see me unless she wished to be exposed to the shame of
being refused admittance. I called a servant and ordered him to deliver
the letter at once. He had hardly closed the door when I called him back.
He did not hear me; I did not dare call again; covering my face with my
hands I yielded to an overwhelming sense of despair.
CHAPTER IV
THE following morning the first question that occurred to my mind was:
"What shall I do?"
I had no occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being able to
decide on either of the two professions; I had worked for a banker for
six months and my services were so unsatisfactory that I was obliged to
resign to avoid being discharged. My studies had been varied but
superficial; my memory was active but not retentive.
My only treasure after love, was independence. In my childhood I had
devoted myself to a morose cult, and had, so to speak, consecrated my
heart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to me
of several careers between which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning
on the window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swaying in
the breeze down in the garden.
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