On the other hand, a voluntary indiscretion on the part of Olivier appeared so probable, so conformable to the habitual meanness of wounded masculine pride! Ely never thought of any other cause, never sought any other motive for the crushing revolution wrought in Pierre's soul, of which she had before her a mute proof, more indisputable, more convincing than any phrase. The details of the catastrophe appeared before her simply and logically. Olivier had left her frantic with anger and desire, with jealousy and humiliated pride. In an excess of semi-madness he had failed of his honor. He had spoken! What had he said? All?—
At the mere idea the blood froze in the poor woman's veins. From the minute when, upon the quay of the old port at Genoa, Hautefeuille had held out to her the despatch announcing Olivier's return, she had traversed so many horrible hours that it appeared as though in her thoughts she must have become accustomed to the danger, that she must have admitted the possibility of this event. But, when in love, the heart possesses such stores of confidence, united to a keen power of self-deception, that she came face to face with the actuality as unprepared, unresigned, as unwittingly as we all meet death.—Ah! if she could only see Pierre at once. If she could only be alone with him, could only talk to him, could only plead her cause, defend herself, explain to him all she once had been and why, show him what she had now become and the reason, tell him of her struggles, of her longing to unbosom herself to him at the beginning, and that she had only kept silence through fear of losing him, through a trembling terror of wounding him in his tenderest feelings! If she could only see him to show him that love had caused it all, that it was love!—
Yes, see him! But where? When? How? At the hotel? He would not receive her. Olivier was there watching, guarding him. See him at her own villa? He would not come there again. Make a rendezvous with him? She could not. He would not even open her letter! She felt in the depths of her nature, which had remained so primitive and unrestrained, all the savage spirit of her Black Mountain ancestors rebelling against the bonds that tied her. With all her wretchedness she could not keep down a movement of reckless violence. Her powerless rage found vent—it was the only outlet possible—in a letter written to her cowardly denunciator, Olivier. She despised him at this moment for all the faith that she had felt in his loyalty. She loathed him with the same energy that she loved Pierre.
This second letter was useless and unworthy of herself. But to give free course to her rage against Olivier was to give relief to her passion for his friend. Besides—for in stirring up the depths of our nature suffering arouses that vague foundation of hope that remains with us in spite of the deepest despair—was it not possible that Olivier, when he once saw how infamously he had acted, would go to his friend and say: "It was not true; I lied when I told you she had been my mistress"?
This whirlwind of mad ideas, vain rage, and senseless hypotheses was shattered and driven away by an event as brutal as the first. Ely sent the letter to Olivier by one of her footmen about seven o'clock. Half an hour later, when she was finishing her toilet in a fever of anxiety, the man brought back the reply. It was a large sealed envelope with her address written in Olivier's handwriting. Inside was her letter unopened.
The two friends had thus made a compact. They both insulted her in the same way! It was as plain to her as though she had seen them take each other's hand and swear a pact of alliance against her in the name of their friendship.
For the first time this woman, usually superior to all the pettiness of her sex, felt against their friendship all the unreasoning hate that the ordinary mistress has for even the simple companionships of her lover. She felt that instinctive impulse of feminine antipathy for sentiments purely masculine, and from which the woman feels excluded forever. During the hours following the double insult, Ely was not only a woman in love repulsed and disdained, a woman who loses with him she loves all joy in life, a woman who will die of the effect of her loss. She was not only this, she also suffered all the pangs of a devouring jealousy. She was jealous of Olivier, jealous of the affection he inspired in Pierre and that Pierre returned. In the despair that the certainty of the cruel desertion caused her, she felt mingled an additional pang of suffering at the idea that these two men were happy in the triumph of their fraternal tenderness, that they dwelt under the same roof, that they could talk with each other, that they esteemed each other, loved each other.
True, such impressions were out of conformity with her innate magnanimity. But extreme sufferings have one trait in common: they distort the natural feelings and sentiments. The most delicate nature becomes brutal, the most confiding loses the noble power of expansion, the most loving becomes misanthropic when in the grasp of a great grief. There is no more ill-founded prejudice than the one echoed in the famous line—
"Man is an apprentice; suffering, his master."
It may be a master, but it is a degrading, depraving master. Not to be corrupted by suffering one must accept the trial as a punishment and a redemption. And then it is not the suffering that ameliorates one, but faith!