“But such delights never last long.
“It had not taken me long to find out that I had given myself a master, and the most imperious and exacting master that ever lived. I had almost ceased to belong to myself. I had become her property; and I lived and breathed and thought and acted for her alone. She did not mind my tastes and my dislikes. She wished a thing, and that was enough. She wrote to me, ‘Come!’ and I had to be instantly on the spot: she said to me, ‘Go!’ an I had to leave at once. At first I accepted these evidences of her despotism with joy; but gradually I became tired of this perpetual abdication of my own will. I disliked to have no control over myself, to be unable to dispose of twenty-four hours in advance. I began to feel the pressure of the halter around my neck. I thought of flight. One of my friends was to set out on a voyage around the world, which was to last eighteen months or two years, and I had an idea of accompanying him. There was nothing to retain me. I was, by fortune and position, perfectly independent. Why should I not carry out my plan?
“Ah, why? The prism was not broken yet. I cursed the tyranny of the countess; but I still trembled when I heard her name mentioned. I thought of escaping from her; but a single glance moved me to the bottom of my heart. I was bound to her by the thousand tender threads of habit and of complicity,—those threads which seem to be more delicate than gossamer, but which are harder to break than a ship’s cable.
“Still, this idea which had occurred to me brought it about that I uttered for the first time the word ‘separation’ in her presence, asking her what she would do if I should leave her. She looked at me with a strange air and asked me, after a moment’s hesitation,—
“‘Are you serious? Is it a warning?’
“I dared not carry matters any farther, and, making an effort to smile, I said,—
“‘It is only a joke.’
“‘Then,’ she said, ‘let us not say any thing more about it. If you should ever come to that, you would soon see what I would do.’
“I did not insist; but that look remained long in my memory, and made me feel that I was far more closely bound than I had thought. From that day it became my fixed idea to break with her.”
“Well, you ought to have made an end of it,” said Magloire.