That cold silence, that negative force,
exasperated me to the last point. Had I been really deceived and
convinced of the guilt of the woman I loved, I could not have suffered
more. As I had condemned myself to remain in Paris, I reflected that I
must compel Brigitte to speak at any price. In vain, I tried to think of
some means of forcing her to enlighten me; for such power, I would have
given all I possessed. What could I do or say? She sat there calm and
unruffled looking at me with sadness. I heard the sound of the horses'
hoofs on the pavement as the carriage drew out of the court. I had merely
to turn my hand to call them back, but it seemed to me that there was
something irrevocable about their departure. I slipped the bolt on the
door; something whispered in my ear: "You are face to face with the woman
who must give you life or death."
While thus buried in thought, I tried to invent some expedient that would
lead to the truth, I recalled one of Diderot's romances in which a woman,
jealous of her lover, resorted to a novel plan, for the purpose of
clearing away her doubts. She told him that she no longer loved him and
that she wished to leave him. The Marquis des Arcis, the name of the
lover, falls into the trap, and confesses that he, himself, has tired of
the liaison. That piece of strategy, which I had read at too early an
age, had struck me as being very skilful and the recollection of it at
this moment made me smile.
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