promises. How refuse his hand to this little white one, delicately
veined with blue, that was held out to him full of caresses? How say,
"Get you gone," to these eighteen years, the presence of which already
filled the home with a perfume of youth and gaiety? And then with her
sweet voice, tenderly thrilling, she sang the cavatina of temptation so
well. With her bright and sparkling eyes she said so clearly, "I am
love," with her lips, where kisses nestled, "I am pleasure," with her
whole being, in short, "I am happiness," that Rodolphe let himself be
caught by them. And, besides, was not this young girl after all real and
living poetry, had he not owed her his freshest inspirations, had she
not often initiated him into enthusiasms which bore him so far afield in
the ether of reverie that he lost sight of all things of earth? If he
had suffered deeply on account of her, was not this suffering the
expiation of the immense joys she had bestowed upon him? Was it not the
ordinary vengeance of human fate which forbids absolute happiness as an
impiety? If the law of Christianity forgives those who have much loved,
it is because they have also much suffered, and terrestrial love never
became a divine passion save on condition of being purified by tears. As
one grows intoxicated by breathing the odor of faded roses, Rodolphe
again became so by reviving in recollection that past life in which
every day brought about a fresh elegy, a terrible drama, or a grotesque
comedy. He went through all the phases of his strange love from their
honeymoon to the domestic storms that had brought about their last
rupture, he recalled all the tricks of his ex-mistress, repeated all her
witty sayings. He saw her going to and fro about their little household,
humming her favorite song, and facing with the same careless gaiety good
or evil days.

And in the end he arrived at the conclusion that common sense was always
wrong in love affairs. What, indeed, had he gained by their rupture? At
the time when he was living with Mimi she deceived him, it was true, but
if he was aware of this it was his fault after all that he was so, and
because he gave himself infinite pains to become aware of it, because he
passed his time on the alert for proofs, and himself sharpened the
daggers which he plunged into his heart. Besides, was not Mimi clever
enough to prove to him at need that he was mistaken? And then for whose
sake was she false to him? It was generally