"But why? why?"
And he sifted Theresa's character without meeting with any reply. He might as well have asked why Theresa had senses as well as a heart, and why at certain times there was set up, as with men, a divorce between the longings of her heart and the tyranny of her senses. Those debauchees in whom libertinism has not killed sentimentality know the secret of these divorces; but Hubert was not a debauchee. He must remain pure even in his despair, and it never occurred to him to seek forgetfulness of his trouble in the intoxication of loveless kisses. He was still ignorant of venal and consoling alcoves—where men lose indeed their regrets, but at the cost of losing their dreams.
And yet, since he was young, and since, in his intimacy with Theresa, he had made a habit of the most ardent pleasure—pleasure which exalts both mind and body in divine communion—he began, after some weeks of these sorrows and reflections, to feel a dim desire, an unacknowledged appetite for this woman of whom he wished to know nothing more, whom he must regard as dead, and whom he so utterly despised.
This strange and unconscious return towards the delights of his love, but a return no longer ennobled by any ideal, manifested itself in a curiosity such as those are which issue from the unfathomable depths of our being. He felt a sickly longing to see with his own eyes this man who had been Theresa's lover, this La Croix-Firmin, to whom his mistress had given herself, and, in whose arms she had quivered with voluptuousness as in his own. To a spiritual director who had traced, period by period, the ravage wrought in this soul by the corrupt leaven inoculated by Theresa's betrayal, such curiosity would doubtless have appeared the most decisive symptom of a metamorphosis in this youth who had grown up amid all modesty. Was it not the transition from that absolute horror of evil which is the torment and glory of virgin natures, to that kind of still more frightful attraction which borders so closely upon depravity?
But it was especially that frightful facility of imagination about the impurity of a desired woman, which, by one of the saddest laws of our nature, brings it to pass that proof of infidelity, while degrading the lover, and dishonouring the mistress, so frequently kindles love. It is probable that, in such cases, the conception of the perfidy acts like an infamous picture, and that this is the explanation of those fits of sensuality which occur amid the hatred felt, and which astonish the moralist in certain law-suits founded upon the dramas of jealousy.
Poor Hubert was certainly not one to harbour such base instincts; and yet his curiosity to become acquainted with his Trouville rival was already a very unhealthy one. Its nature was the same as that of Theresa's fault. It is the obscure, indestructible recollection of the flesh which operates without the knowledge of the being who is under its influence. The memory of all the caresses given and received since the night at Folkestone counted for something in this desire to feast his eyes on the real existence of the hated man. It became something so sharp And severe that after struggling for a long time, And with the feeling that he was lowering himself strangely, Hubert could resist no longer, and he employed the following almost childish procedure, for the realisation of his singular desire.
He calculated that La Croix-Firmin must belong to a fashionable club, and it was not long before he had discovered his name and address in the year-book of such a one. It was to this club that he had recourse in order to ascertain whether the individual in question was in Paris. The reply was in the affirmative. Hubert reconnoitred the Rue La Peyrouse, in which his rival lived, and he immediately satisfied himself that by standing on the footpath of one of the Places intersected by this street, he could watch the house, which was one of two stories in height, and which certainly contained but a very small number of tenants.
He had said to himself that he would take up a position there one morning, and wait until he saw some man come out who appeared to be he whom he sought. He would then question the porter, under some pretext or other, and would, doubtless, thus receive information. It was a method of primitive simplicity, and one in which all those who in their youth have had a passionate adoration for some celebrated writer will recognise the ingenuousness of the stratagems which they employed to see their hero. If this plan failed, Hubert could fall back upon an application to one of those whom he knew among the members of the club; but he felt a great repugnance to taking such a step.
Accordingly he found himself on the spot at nine o'clock one cold December morning. The weather was dry and clear, the sky of a pale blue, and the half-fashionable, half-exotic quarter given over to the traffic of its crowd of tradesmen and grooms. Hubert saw emerge successively from the house which he was examining, some servants, an old lady, a little boy followed by an abbé, and finally, at about half-past eleven, a man who was still young, of medium height, fashionably dressed, slender and strong in his otter-lined overcoat.
This man was just buttoning up his collar as he proceeded straight in Hubert's direction. The latter also advanced, and brushed past the stranger. He saw a somewhat heavy profile, a moustache of the colour of burnished gold, a complexion already coloured by the cold, and the dull eye of a hard liver who has gone late to bed, after a night spent at the gaming table or elsewhere. An inexpressible pain at his heart caused the jealous lover to hasten to the house.