"Brigitte! Brigitte!" I cried, "in the name of Heaven, do not speak! God
is my witness I was not born such as you see me; during my life I have
been neither suspicious nor distrustful, I have been undone, my heart has
been seared by the treachery of others. A frightful experience has led me
to the very brink of the precipice, and for a year I have seen nothing
but evil here below. God is my witness that up to this day I did not
believe myself capable of playing the ignoble role I have assumed, the
meanest role of all, that of a jealous lover. God is my witness that I
love you and that you are the only one in the world who can cure me of
the past. I have had to do, up to this time, with women who deceived me,
or who were unworthy of love. I have led the life of a libertine; I bear
on my heart certain marks that will never be effaced. Is it my fault if
calumny, if base suggestion, to-day planted in a heart whose fibers were
still trembling with pain and prompt to assimilate all that resembles
sorrow, has driven me to despair? I have just heard the name of a man I
have never met, of whose existence I was ignorant; I have been given to
understand that there has been between you and him a certain intimacy,
which proves nothing; I do not intend to question you; I have suffered
from it, I have confessed to you and I have done you an irreparable
wrong. But rather than consent to what you propose, I will throw it all
in the fire.
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