And I left without her granting me one single look of compassion or sorrow.
Her hand alone seemed to tremble slightly on her embroidery as she said adieu.
I took my departure heartbroken.
I had too great and too conscious a distrust of myself and my deserts to have the slightest hope of any success with Catherine.
I could not yield to my customary suspicious impulse, for I had implicit faith in Madame de Fersen's sincerity, and I doubted of ever having aroused any sentiment in her heart. "She feels no tender affection for me, and her friendship even has vanished in the glare of brilliant worldly diversions."
I had been away from her almost always, and the effects and results of absence are unbounded and varied.
At times it strengthens a woman's secret sympathy, by concentrating her thoughts on the man who has attracted her, and whose charm is exaggerated by the distant mirage. A woman finds a proud, sad, and mysterious delight in the bitterness of her solitary regrets; she scorns the indifferent ones who occupy a place near her, which she so ardently wishes to see filled by one precious to her, and she detests those eager in their attentions because they are base enough to be there while the preferred one is far away.
Often, however, absence is forgetfulness, for some hearts are like mirrors, and only reflect objects that are present.
I therefore believed myself entirely forgotten by Madame de Fersen. I had anticipated the possibility of this cruel predicament, and, if it gave me deep sorrow, it did not occasion me great surprise.
In the climax of my despair, I made a thousand projects. I determined to shake off this grief, to give myself up to all life's dissipations, to seek amorous distraction in some fresh entanglement; but it takes time and a strong will for a heart deeply smitten to transfer its worship.