Autobiographical fiction; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Villages -- France -- Fiction
He returned to the other point of view--opposite to that of his love
and of his jealousy, to which he resorted at times by a sort of mental
equity, and in order to make allowance for different eventualities--from
which he tried to form a fresh judgment of Odette, based on the
supposition that he had never been in love with her, that she was to him
just a woman like other women, that her life had not been (whenever he
himself was not present) different, a texture woven in secret apart from
him, and warped against him.
Wherefore believe that she would enjoy down there with Forcheville or
with other men intoxicating pleasures which she had never known with
him, and which his jealousy alone had fabricated in all their elements?
At Bayreuth, as in Paris, if it should happen that Forcheville thought
of him at all, it would only be as of some one who counted for a great
deal in the life of Odette, some one for whom he was obliged to make
way, when they met in her house. If Forcheville and she scored a
triumph by being down there together in spite of him, it was he who had
engineered that triumph by striving in vain to prevent her from going
there, whereas if he had approved of her plan, which for that matter was
quite defensible, she would have had the appearance of being there by
his counsel, she would have felt herself sent there, housed there by
him, and for the pleasure which she derived from entertaining those
people who had so often entertained her, it was to him that she would
have had to acknowledge her indebtedness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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