Thus it was impossible, seeing the gracious smiles of the women, the obsequious bows of the men who greeted her as she left the Opéra, it was impossible that Madame de Pënâfiel should ever dream of a thousandth part of the miserable scandal of which she was the subject. As I was saying, all this was miserable, and left me in a state of overwhelming sadness. I had just passed a whole day of that life of pleasure, as it is called, that luxurious existence which is only permitted to the few to enjoy, and now I found myself at the end of it with this frightful void at my heart. Then, following this train of thought, I compared this false, hollow, sterile, and glittering life with the vivifying, expansive, and generous existence that I had led at Serval! Poor old paternal château! Peaceful and smiling horizon, towards which my heart always turned when overburdened with grief or wounded by heartlessness! Oh, what desperate remorse I felt as I thought of Hélène, whom I had lost by an infamous doubt; of that noble girl, so adorable in her halo of candour, and so chastely surrounded by her atmosphere of angelic purity that nothing had ever clouded, but which, for a moment only, on one memorable morning, had been obscured by her love for me! Hélène! Hélène! One of those divine natures which are born and die, like a swan on some solitary lake, pure and spotless. And then descending from the high sphere of thoughts that shone with such pure lustre, I tried to find some means of dulling the sad memories they awakened in my breast. I tried to hope that, at some far-off day, my heart might find consolation, and I thought of the involuntary interest I already began to feel in Madame de Pënâfiel. But I felt that, for a woman who had been so blasted by calumny, so tarnished with abuse, however undeserved, it would never be possible for me to feel the ardent, deep, and holy love of which one is as proud as of a noble action.