"I believe that you love me now," he answered. "But can you prove to me that to-morrow, or in a month, or in a year, you will still be happy to be mine? Can you prove to me that to-day, even at this very moment, you are wholly mine? How much of you do I possess?"
"Everything," murmured Hippolyte.
"No," he went on, "nothing, or almost nothing. And I do not possess what I should like to possess. You are a perfect stranger to me. Like every other human being, you conceal within yourself a world which is impenetrable to me and to which no depth of passion can give me access. Of your sensations, your sentiments, your thoughts, I know but a small part. Speech is at best an imperfect sign. The soul is incommunicable. You cannot show me your soul. Even in our most ecstatic moments we are two, always two—separate, strangers, lonely at heart. I kiss your brow, and beneath that brow there exists possibly a thought that is not of me. I speak to you and what I say perhaps awakens in you memories of other days, and not of my love. A man passes, looks at you, and in your heart this slight fact gives rise to an emotion which I am unable to detect. And I never know what reflections of your past life may flash upon you even when you show most affection for me. Ah, I am so afraid of that past life of yours! I am by your side; I feel a delicious happiness invade my being, a happiness which at certain moments results from your presence alone. I caress you, I speak to you, I listen to you, I abandon myself entirely. All at once, a thought chills me. If, without being aware of it, I had evoked in your memory the phantom of a former sensation, melancholy relic of by-gone days? Never can I describe my anguish. This ardor, which induces in me the illusory feeling of I know not what communion between you and me, dies out all at once. You escape me, you steal away, you become inaccessible. And I remain alone in frightful solitude. Ten, twenty months of intimacy, are all as nothing. You seem to me as much a stranger as before your love for me began. And I—I cease to caress you, I no longer speak, I retire within myself, I avoid all external manifestation, I dread that the slightest shock should raise from the bottom of your soul the obscure dregs deposited there by irrevocable life. And then there fall on us those long silences full of anguish, in which the energies of the heart are uselessly and miserably consumed. I ask you: 'Of what are you thinking?' And you reply: 'Of what are you thinking?' I am ignorant of your thoughts and you are ignorant of mine. Every moment the distance between us widens, until finally it becomes abysmal."
"But," objected Hippolyte, "I experience no such feelings. I give you more of myself than ever. I think my love is stronger."
This affirmation of superiority wounded anew the invalid.
"You think too much," she continued. "You pay too much attention to your thoughts. Possibly I have less attraction for you than your thoughts, because your thoughts are always different, always new, while now I have nothing that is new to offer you. In the beginning of our love you were less reflective and more spontaneous. You had not yet developed a taste for the bitter things in life; you were more lavish with your kisses than with your words. If, as you say, speech is an imperfect sign, it is not well to abuse it. And you do abuse it and in an almost always cruel manner."
Then, after an interval of silence, prompted to speak by something he said, she yielded to the temptation to express herself:
"Only cadavers are dissected."
But scarcely had she spoken than she regretted it. Her remark struck her as being vulgar, unfeminine, and acrimonious. She was sorry she had not preserved that gentle and indulgent tone which had moved her lover so strongly a few moments before. Once more she had failed in her resolution to be to him the most patient and tender of nurses.
"You see," she said repentantly, "it is you who spoil me."