“Is there not a way of my making you feel that what I am saying to you is true? That never since I have been yours, never—But how could I? The very idea of it seems horrible, absurd. Do you know me so little?”
He shook his head sadly. “I do not know you.”
She questioned once more with her eyes all the objects in the room.
“But then, what we have been to each other was vain, useless. Men and women break themselves against one another; they do not mingle.”
She revolted. It was not possible that he should not feel what he was to her. And, in the ardor of her love, she threw herself on him and smothered him with kisses and tears. He forgot everything, and took her in his arms—sobbing, weak, yet happy—and clasped her close with the fierceness of desire. With her head leaning back against the pillow, she smiled through her tears. Then, brusquely he disengaged himself.
“I do not see you alone. I see the other with you always.” She looked at him, dumb, indignant, desperate. Then, feeling that all was indeed at an end, she cast around her a surprised glance of her unseeing eyes, and went slowly away.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A woman is frank when she does not lie uselessly
A hero must be human. Napoleon was human
Anti-Semitism is making fearful progress everywhere
Brilliancy of a fortune too new
Curious to know her face of that day
Disappointed her to escape the danger she had feared
Do you think that people have not talked about us?
Does not wish one to treat it with either timidity or brutality
Does one ever possess what one loves?
Each had regained freedom, but he did not like to be alone
Each was moved with self-pity
Everybody knows about that
Fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city
Gave value to her affability by not squandering it
He could not imagine that often words are the same as actions
He studied until the last moment
He is not intelligent enough to doubt
He does not bear ill-will to those whom he persecutes
He knew now the divine malady of love
Her husband had become quite bearable
His habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth
(Housemaid) is trained to respect my disorder
I love myself because you love me
I can forget you only when I am with you
I wished to spoil our past
I feel in them (churches) the grandeur of nothingness
I have to pay for the happiness you give me
I gave myself to him because he loved me
I haven’t a taste, I have tastes
I have known things which I know no more
I do not desire your friendship
Ideas they think superior to love—faith, habits, interests
Immobility of time
Impatient at praise which was not destined for himself
Incapable of conceiving that one might talk without an object
It was torture for her not to be able to rejoin him
It is an error to be in the right too soon
It was too late: she did not wish to win
Jealous without having the right to be jealous
Kisses and caresses are the effort of a delightful despair
Knew that life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope
Laughing in every wrinkle of his face
Learn to live without desire
Let us give to men irony and pity as witnesses and judges
Life as a whole is too vast and too remote
Life is made up of just such trifles
Life is not a great thing
Little that we can do when we are powerful
Love is a soft and terrible force, more powerful than beauty
Love was only a brief intoxication
Lovers never separate kindly
Made life give all it could yield
Magnificent air of those beggars of whom small towns are proud
Miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past
Nobody troubled himself about that originality
None but fools resisted the current
Not everything is known, but everything is said
Nothing is so legitimate, so human, as to deceive pain
One would think that the wind would put them out: the stars
One who first thought of pasting a canvas on a panel
One is never kind when one is in love
One should never leave the one whom one loves
Picturesquely ugly
Recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open
Relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her
Seemed to him that men were grains in a coffee-mill
She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it
She is happy, since she likes to remember
Should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one
Simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others
Since she was in love, she had lost prudence
So well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice
Superior men sometimes lack cleverness
That sort of cold charity which is called altruism
That if we live the reason is that we hope
That absurd and generous fury for ownership
The most radical breviary of scepticism since Montaigne
The door of one’s room opens on the infinite
The past is the only human reality—Everything that is, is past
The one whom you will love and who will love you will harm you
The violent pleasure of losing
The discouragement which the irreparable gives
The real support of a government is the Opposition
The politician never should be in advance of circumstances
There is nothing good except to ignore and to forget
There are many grand and strong things which you do not feel
They are the coffin saying: ‘I am the cradle’
To be beautiful, must a woman have that thin form
Trying to make Therese admire what she did not know
Umbrellas, like black turtles under the watery skies
Unfortunate creature who is the plaything of life
Was I not warned enough of the sadness of everything?
We are too happy; we are robbing life
What will be the use of having tormented ourselves in this world
Whether they know or do not know, they talk
Women do not always confess it, but it is always their fault
You must take me with my own soul!