(André Chénier.[3])
Everyone in France knows the anecdote of Mademoiselle de Sommery, who, caught in flagrant delict by her lover, flatly denied the fact. On his protesting, she replied: "Very well, I see you don't love me any more: you believe what you see before what I tell you."
To make it up with an idol of a mistress, who has been unfaithful, is to set yourself to undo with the point of a dagger a crystallisation incessantly forming afresh. Love has got to die, and your heart will feel the cruel pang of every stage in its agony.
It is one of the saddest dispositions of this passion and of life. You must be strong enough to make it up only as friends.
[1] You compare the branch adorned with diamonds to the branch left bare, and contrast adds sting to your memories.
[2] e. g. the love of Alfieri for that great English lady (Lady Ligonier) who also philandered with her footman and prettily signed herself Penelope. (Vita, Epoca III, Chaps. X and XI.)
[3] ["Sooner than die, we will go very far in search of some friendly pretext to live and suffer."—Tr.]
CHAPTER XXXVII
ROXANA
As for women's jealousy—they are suspicious, they have infinitely more at stake than we, they have made a greater sacrifice to love, have far fewer means of distraction and, above all, far fewer means of keeping a check on their lover's actions. A woman feels herself degraded by jealousy; she thinks her lover is laughing at her, or, still worse, making fun of her tenderest transports. Cruelty must tempt her—and yet, legally, she cannot kill her rival!