Believing that I had divined his meaning, I challenged him brusquely to greater frankness:
“Yes, you are divided between the old love and the new.”
He bent on me that madman’s look that no one faces willingly.
“No love will ever equal mine for Raymonde. No love will ever efface her memory from my life.”
I ceased to understand him. After a silence which I did not disturb, he continued:
“The week at Rheims was filled with shouts of applause, it was a veritable triumphal progress. You were not there, you cannot imagine it. The boldest hopes accompanied our flights. I had my share of glory. The intoxication of success which I had formerly been so eager to taste even in small measure, exaggerated and magnified now, went to my head and for the moment made me forget. I was introduced to this young girl, who shone with enthusiasm as the windows of an unknown city blaze in the sun. When I came to myself I was her fiancé. Do you know that the day of our marriage has been announced? It is set for next month. Since my return here, I have recognised my mistake. The days have passed; they are passing now, and I am still silent and they are waiting for me. But understand me, it is impossible, it would be monstrous.”
He addressed me with increasing violence, and I endeavoured to reassure him. Life holds us captive, I urged, in spite of ourselves. Youth has an aptitude for happiness which may be nothing more than the faculty of beginning over again. He stopped me.
“No, no, you don’t understand.”
Two manuscript portfolios were lying on the table, one open and the other closed. With a movement that seemed almost inspired, he suddenly picked them up and handed them to me.
“Here, read this,” he said. “You will understand then. You will learn that there are silent dramas more tragic than the bloodiest crimes. Now leave me. Good-bye till to-morrow. Oh, don’t fear for me. Your presence this evening has dissipated bad ideas.”