The disciple

by Paul Bourget

I retained at the bottom of my heart, I cannot say a happiness, but a something of satisfaction which sustained me in this crisis. When Charlotte passed me without noticing me any more than some object forgotten there by a servant, I contemplated her response to my declaration of love. For another experience of that happiness, perhaps, I would have accepted anew the fatal compact, with the cold resolve to keep it. But this happiness had none the less been true.

And was this love really, irremediably ended? In doing as she had done Mlle, de Jussat had proved a very deep passion. Was it possible that nothing remained of it in this romantic heart?

To-day and in the light of the tragedy which ended this lamentable adventure, I comprehend that it was precisely this romantic character which prevented any return of love into this heart. She had loved in me a mirage, a being absolutely different from myself, and the sudden vision of my true nature having at a blow dispelled her illusions, she hated me with all the power of her old love.

Alas! with all my pretensions to the learned psychologist, I did not see the evolution of this mind, then! I did not even suspect that she would seek at any price the means of knowing me better, and that she would go, in the distraction of her actual disgust, so far as to treat me as judges treat the accused; in fine that she would read my papers and would not recoil before any scruple.

I did not even know enough to guess that she was not the girl to survive such a shock as the revelation of my cold-blooded resolutions written in my notebook brought upon her, and I did not think to destroy the bottle of poison which I had refused to give her.

I believed myself to be a great observer because I reflected a great deal. The quibbles of my analysis concealed from me its falsity. It was not necessary to reflect at this period, but to observe. Instead, deceived by this reasoning which I have just gone over to you, and persuaded that Charlotte loved me still in spite of her contempt, I tried to recall this love by the most simple means, the most ineffective at that moment.

I wrote to her.

I found my letter on my bureau the same day, unopened. I went to her door at night and called to her. This door was locked and no one replied. I tried to stop her again. She waved me off with more authority than the first time, without looking at me.

Finally, the heartbreak of this continuous insult was stronger than the ardors of passion which had begun to kindle in me. On the evening of the day in which she had thus repulsed me, I wept much, then I resolved upon a definite course. A little of my old energy had returned, for it was needed for this part which I had undertaken.

The next week M. de Plane and Count André were coming. This would have decided me if I had still hesitated. Their presence, in this double and sinister disaster of my love and of my pride, no, I would not, I could not endure it.