f
constraint between us, a sort of conventional familiarity. It was as if
we had agreed: "It was thus before, let it still be thus." She granted me
her confidence, a concession that was not without its charms for me; but
our conversation was colder, for the reason that our eyes expressed as
much as our tongues. In all that we said there was more to be surmised
than was actually spoken. We no longer endeavored to fathom each other's
minds; there was not the same interest attaching to each word, to each
sentiment; that curious analysis that characterized our past intercourse;
she treated me with kindness, but I distrusted even that kindness; I
walked with her in the garden, but no longer accompanied her outside of
the premises; we no longer wandered through the woods and valleys; she
opened the piano when we were alone; the sound of her voice no longer
awakened in my heart those transports of joy which are like sobs that are
inspired by hope. When I took leave of her, she gave me her hand, but I
was conscious of the fact that it was lifeless; there was much effort in
our familiar ease, many reflections in our lightest remarks, much sadness
at the bottom of it all. We felt that there was a third party between us:
it was my love for her. My actions never betrayed it, but it appeared in
my face. I lost my cheerfulness, my energy, and the color of health that
once shone in my cheeks. At the end of one month I no longer resembled my
old self. And yet in all our conversations I insisted on my disgust with
the world, on my aversion to returning to it. I tried to make Madame
Pierson feel that she had no reason to reproach herself for allowing me
to see her; I depicted my past life in the most sombre colors, and gave
her to understand that if she should refuse to allow me to see her, she
would condemn me to a loneliness worse than death. I told her that I held
society in abhorrence and the story of my life, as I recited it, proved
my sincerity. So I affected a cheerfulness that I was far from feeling,
in order to show her that in permitting me to see her, she had saved me
from the most frightful misfortune; I thanked her almost every time I
went to see her, that I might return in the evening or the following
morning. "All my dreams of happiness," said I, "all my hopes, all my
ambitions, are enclosed in the little corner of the earth where you
dwell; outside of the air that you breathe there is no life for me."

She saw that I was s