I fancy that I can see such a victim of inexorable Destiny, as if she were a consumptive woman whose days are numbered, and who knows it. She smiles feebly when any one tries to get her out of her torpor, to amuse her and to instill a little hope into her soul. She does not speak, but remains sitting silently at a window for whole days together, and one might think that her large, dreamy eyes are looking at strange sights in the depths of the sky, and see a long, attractive road there. But Elaine, on the contrary, thought of nothing but of amusing herself, of enjoying life and of laughing, and added all the tricks of a girl who has just left school, to her seductive grace of a young woman. She carried men away with her; she was most seductive, and loving seemed to be her creation. She thought of nothing but of little coquettish acts that made her more adorable, and of tender innuendos that triumph over everything, that bring men to their knees and tempt them. It was thus that I formerly dreamt of the woman who was to be my wife, and this was the manner in which I looked on life in common; and now this perpetual joy irritates me like a challenge, like some piece of insolent boasting, and those lips that seek mine, and which offer themselves so alluringly and coaxingly to me, make me sad and torture me, as if they breathed nothing but a Lie. Ah! If she had been the lover of another man before marriage, if she had belonged to some one else besides me, it could only have been from love, without altogether knowing what she wanted or what she was doing! And, now, because she had acquired a name by marriage, because she had accidentally extricated herself from that false step and thought she had won the game, now that she fancied that I had not perceived anything, that I adored her and possessed her absolutely! How wretched I was! Should I never be able to escape from that night which was growing darker and darker, which was imprisoning me, driving me mad and raising an increasing and impenetrable barrier between Elaine and me. Would not she, in the end, be the stronger, she whom I loved so dearly, would not she envelope me in so much love, that at last I should again find the happiness that I had lost, as if it were a calm, sunlit haven, and thus forget this horrible nightmare when I fell on my knees before her beauty, with a contrite heart and pricked by remorse, and happy to give myself to her for ever, altogether and more passionately than at the divine period of our betrothal. PART XVI