“And yet,” she went on, “this is not the first time that I am assailed by sinister ideas, and that I feel ashamed of myself. I was convinced once that this mad existence of mine is the only enviable one, the only one that can give happiness. And now I discover that it is not the right path which I have taken, or, rather, which I have been made to take. And there is no possibility of retracing my steps.” She turned pale, and, in an accent of gloomy despair, “Every thing fails me,” she said. “It seems as though I were rolling into a bottomless abyss, without a branch or a tuft of grass to cling to. Around me, emptiness, night, chaos. I am not yet twenty and it seems to me that I have lived thousands of years, and exhausted every sensation. I have seen every thing, learned every thing, experienced every thing; and I am tired of every thing, and satiated and nauseated. You see me looking like a brainless hoyden, I sing, I jest, I talk slang. My gayety surprises everybody. In reality, I am literally tired to death. What I feel I could not express, there are no words to render absolute disgust. Sometimes I say to myself, ‘It is stupid to be so sad. What do you need? Are you not young, handsome, rich?’ But I must need something, or else I would not be thus agitated, nervous, anxious, unable to stay in one place, tormented by confused aspirations, and by desires which I cannot formulate. What can I do? Seek oblivion in pleasure and dissipation? I try, and I succeed for an hour or so; but the reaction comes, and the effect vanishes, like froth from champagne. The lassitude returns; and, whilst outwardly I continue to laugh, I shed within tears of blood which scald my heart. What is to become of me, without a memory in the past, or a hope in the future, upon which to rest my thought?” And bursting into tears, “Oh, I am wretchedly unhappy!” she exclaimed; “and I wish I was dead.” M. de Tregars rose, feeling more deeply moved than he would, perhaps, have liked to acknowledge. “I was laughing at you only a moment since,” he said in his grave and vibrating voice. “Pardon me, mademoiselle. It is with the utmost sincerity, and from the innermost depths of my soul, that I pity you.” She was looking at him with an air of timid doubt, big tears trembling between her long eyelashes. “Honest?” she asked. “Upon my honor.” “And you will not go with too poor an opinion of me?” “I shall retain the firm belief that when you were yet but a child, you were spoiled by insane theories.” Gently and sadly she was passing her hand over her forehead. “Yes, that’s it,” she murmured. “How could I resist examples coming from certain persons? How could I help becoming intoxicated when I saw myself, as it were, in a cloud of incense when I heard nothing but praises and applause? And then there is the money, which depraves when it comes in a certain way.”