live to be sixty
at least, but take care not to spend it too freely or to use it
immoderately; beware of strong emotions and of any passional crisis, for
I remark a gap there in the full vigor of your age, and that gap, that
incurable malady which I mentioned to you, in the line of your
heart...."

I mastered myself, in order not to smile, and took my leave of her, but
everything that she foretold has been realized, and I dare not look at
that sinister gap which she saw in my line of life, _for that gap can
only mean madness_!

Madness, my poor, dear adored Elaine!

PART XIX

I became as bad and spiteful as if the spirit of hatred had possession
of me, and envied those whose life was too happy, and who had no cares
to trouble them. I could not conceal my pleasure when one of those
domestic dramas occurred, in which hearts bleed and are broken, in which
odious treachery and bitter sufferings are brought to light.

Divorce proceedings with their miserable episodes, with the wranglings
of the lawyers and all the unhappiness that they revealed and which
exposed the vanity of dreams, the tricks of women, the lowness of some
minds, the foul animal that sits and slumbers in most hearts, attracted
me like a delightful play, a piece which rivets one from the first to
the last act. I listened greedily to passionate letters, those mad
prayers whose secrets some lawyer violates and which he reads aloud in a
mocking tone, and which he gives pell-mell to the bench and to the
public, who have come to be amused or excited and to stare at the
victims of love.

I followed those romances of adultery which were unfolded chapter by
chapter, in their brutal reality, of things that had actually occurred,
and for the first time I forgot my own unhappiness in them. Sometimes
the husband and wife were there, as if they wished to defy each other,
to meet in some last encounter, and pale and feverish they watched each
other, devoured each other with their eyes, hiding their grief and their
misery. Sometimes again, the lover or the mistress were there and tore
their gloves in their rage, wishing to rush at the bar to defend their
love, to bring forward accusations in their turn, and would tell the
advocate that he was lying, and would threaten him and revile him with
all their indignant nature. Friends, however, would restrain them, would
whisper something to them in a low voice, press their hands like after a
funeral, and try to appease