gret my lost liberty? Had I any private troubles which
I had not told her of; heavy debts which I did not know how to pay; was
it family matters or some former connection with a woman that I had
broken off suddenly, and that now threatened to create a scandal? Was I
being worried by anonymous letters? What was it, in a word; what was it?

My denials only exasperated her, so that she sulked in silence, while
her brain worked and her heart grew hard towards me; but could I, as a
matter of fact, tell her of my suspicions which were filling my life
with gloom and annihilating me? Would it not be odious and vile to
accuse her of such a fall, without any proofs or any clue, and would she
ever forget such an insult?

I almost envied those unfortunate wretches who had the right to be
jealous, who had to fight against a woman's coquettes and light
behavior, and who had to defend their honor that was threatened by some
poacher on the preserves of love. They had a target to aim at; they knew
their enemies and knew what they were doing, while I was wounding in a
land of terrible mirages, was struggling in the midst of vague
suppositions, and was causing my own troubles and was enraged with her
past, which was, I felt sure, as white and pure as any bridal veil.

Ah! It would be better to blow my brains out, I thought to myself, than
to prolong such a situation! I had had enough of it. I scarcely lived,
and I wished to know all that Elaine had done before we became engaged.
I wanted to know whether I was the first or the second, and I determined
to know it, even if I had to sacrifice years of my life in inquiry, and
to lower myself to compromising words and acts, and to every species of
artifice and to spend everything that I possessed!

She might believe whatever she liked, for after all, I should only laugh
at it. We might have been so happy, and there were so many who envied
me, and who would gladly have consented to take my place!

PART XI

I no longer knew where I was going, but was like a train going at full
speed through a dense fog, and which in vain disturbs the perfect
silence of the sleeping country with its puffing and shrill whistles;
when the driver cannot distinguish the changing lights of the discs, nor
the signals, and when soon some terrible crash will send the train off
the rails, and the carriages will become a heap of ruins.

I was afraid of going mad, and at times I asked myself whether any of my
family