What decides the course of these little events, what objects and circumstances, in appearance the least important, lead to changes in fortune, there is not, to my mind, a deeper abyss for the thought. There is something in our ordinary actions that resembles the little blunted arrows we shoot at targets; little by little we make of our successive results an abstract and regular entity that we call our prudence or our will. Then a gust of wind passes, and behold the smallest of these arrows, the very lightest and most futile, is carried beyond our vision, beyond the horizon, to the dwelling-place of God himself. What a strange feeling of unrest seizes us then! What becomes of those fantoms of tranquil pride, the will and prudence? Force itself, that mistress of the world, that sword of man in the combat of life, in vain do we brandish it over our heads in wrath, in vain do we seek to ward off with it a blow which threatens us; an invisible power turns aside the point, and all the impetus of our effort, deflected into space, serves only to precipitate our fall. Thus at the moment I was hoping to cleanse myself from the sin I had committed, perhaps to inflict the penalty, at the very instant when a great horror had taken possession of me, I learned that I had to sustain a dangerous intervention. Desgenais was in good humor; stretching out on my sofa he began to chaff me about the appearance of my face which looked, he said, as though I had not slept well. As I was little disposed to indulge in pleasantry I begged him to spare me. He appeared to pay no attention to me, but warned by my tone he soon broached the subject that had brought him to me. He informed me that my mistress had not only two lovers at a time, but three, that is to say she had treated my rival as badly as she had treated me; the poor boy having discovered her inconstancy made a great ado and all Paris knew it. At first I did not catch the meaning of Desgenais' words as I was not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied that I could not reply. My first impulse was to laugh, for I saw that I had loved the most unworthy of women; but it was no less true that I loved her still. "Is it possible?" was all I could say. Desgenais' friends confirmed all he had said. My mistress had been surprised in her own house between two lovers, and a scene that all Paris knew by heart ensued. She was disgraced, obliged to leave Paris or remain exposed to the most bitter taunts. It was easy for me to see that in all, the ridicule expended on the subject of this woman, on my unreasonable passion for her, was premeditated. To say that she deserved severest censure, that she had perhaps committed worse sins than those with which she was charged, that was to make me feel that I had been merely one of her dupes.