Poor devoted soul! What didst thou suffer in seeing me turn pale before
thee, in seeing my arms fall as though lifeless at my side! When the kiss
died on my lips, and the full glance of love, that pure ray of God's
light, fled from my eyes like an arrow turned by the wind! Ah! Brigitte!
what diamonds trickled from thin eyes! What treasures of charity didst
thou exhaust with patient hand! How pitiful thy love!
For a long time, good and bad days succeeded each other almost regularly;
I showed myself alternately cruel and scornful, tender and devoted,
insensible and haughty, repentant and submissive. The face of Desgenais
which had at first appeared to me, as though to warn me whither I was
drifting, was now constantly before me. On my days of doubt and coldness,
I conversed, so to speak, with him, often when I had offended Brigitte by
some cruel mockery I said to myself: "If he were in my place he would do
as I do!"
And then, at other times, when putting on my hat to go to see Brigitte, I
would look in my glass and say: "What is there so terrible about it,
anyway? I have, after all, a pretty mistress; she has given herself to a
libertine, let her take me for what I am." I reached her side with a
smile on my lips, I sank into a chair with an air of deliberate
insolence; then I saw Brigitte approach, her large eyes filled with
tenderness and anxiety; I seized her little hands in mine and lost myself
in an infinite dream.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193