I fled from that old woman as from jealousy
personified, and as though the stench of her dishes had come from my
heart.
Brigitte was at the window watering her well-beloved flowers; a child of
one of her neighbors was lying in a cradle at her side and she was gently
rocking it with her disengaged hand; the child's mouth was full of
bonbons, and in gurgling eloquence it was addressing an incomprehensible
apostrophe to its nurse. I sat down near her and kissed the child on its
fat cheeks, as though to imbibe some of its innocence. Brigitte accorded
me a timid greeting; she could see her troubled image in my eyes. For my
part, I avoided her glance; the more I admired her beauty and her air of
candor, the more I was convinced that such a woman was either an angel or
a monster of perfidy; I forced myself to recall each one of Mercanson's
words, and I confronted, so to speak, the man's insinuations with her
presence and her face. "She is very beautiful," I said to myself, "and
very dangerous if she knows how to deceive; but I will fathom her and I
will sound her heart; and she shall know who I am."
"My dear," I said after a long silence, "I have just given a piece of
advice to a friend who consulted me. He is an honest young man, and he
writes me that a woman he loves has another lover. He asks me what he
ought to do."
"What reply did you make?"
"Two questions: Is she pretty? Do you love her? If you love her, forget
her; if she is pretty and you do not love her, keep her for your
pleasure; there will always be time to leave her, if it is merely a
matter of beauty, and one is worth as much as another.
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