From that instant, it was as though a funereal crêpe was banded over my eyes, disfiguring everything I looked at. Hélène's face, so candid and pure, now seemed filled with falseness and cupidity. The blackest plot was unfolded to my view: my aunt's carelessness was a base calculation; that letter, drawing her attention to the rumours in circulation, was a part of the scheme; then, with a cruel pride, I applauded myself for having been so clever as to discover and overturn this shameless compact into which they had all entered against me; they had taken me, then, for their dupe. Then, by a swift and inexplicable reaction, all my love was turned to hatred and despite; the tenderest effusions appeared to me as disgraceful pretences. Oh, shame! Oh, grief! my execrable doubting went so far as to disbelieve in the childish affection that Hélène had demonstrated when in the convent; and in my secret heart I even dared to accuse Madame de Verteuil and her daughter with being the accomplices of Hélène and her mother, and to have invented that episode in order to blind me the more surely. Certainly the supposition of so base a deception was odious and stupid; it was horrible and incredible to be thus possessed with doubt when barely twenty-three years old; when, in all my life so far, no bitter experiences, no past deceptions justified me in such scepticism! Alas! it was a sorry benefit, for one cannot deny that, when clothed in such a cuirass of doubt, and armed with such wise distrust, one braves with impunity the falsehoods and deceits of the world. But, as the steel corselet, while protecting you from the enemy's sword, renders you insensible to the warmth of a friendly hand, so unbelief, that iron armour, so cold and polished, protects you from the deceitfulness of a scoundrel, but makes you, alas! impenetrable to the ineffable belief in pure affection. Since now I can analyse and get to the root of the influences, instincts, or natural organisation, which were the causes of this sudden germination and development in my mind of the distrust henceforth to be the centre around which all my thoughts were to gravitate, no matter in how apparently indubitable a position I might be, I can remember my father telling me frequently: "I am glad to see that you distrust your own motives. When we can distrust ourselves, we can defy others, and in this there is great wisdom." Then, by a singular contrast, my mother, blinded by maternal pride, which sublime egotism is to women what personality is to men, after vainly attempting to work me up to a fit of self-glorification, would say, sadly: "My poor, dear child, I am in despair when I see how little confidence you have in yourself; by dint of distrusting yourself, you will lose your belief in others, and that will be a terrible misfortune."