cial position. And as she felt that
facts were too strong for her, and that the situation could
be changed by no efforts of hers, she was exceedingly
miserable.... The struggle between her feelings and her
circumstances had affected her temper. She was often silent
and dreamy: sometimes, however, she spoke with impetuosity.
Beset as she was by a constant preoccupation, she was never
quite calm in the midst of the most miscellaneous
conversation, and for this very reason her manner had an
unrest and an air of surprise about it which made her more
piquant than she was by nature. Her strange position, in
short, took the place of new and original ideas in her.

The difference of note from the earlier eighteenth century will strike
everybody here. If we are still some way from Emma Bovary, it is only
in point of language: we are poles asunder from Marianne. But the hero
is still, in his own belief, acting under the influence of Sensibility.
He is not in the least impassioned, he is not a mere libertine, but he
has a "besoin d'amour." He wants a "conquete." He is still actuated by
the odd mixture of vanity, convention, sensuality, which goes by the
name of our subject. But his love is a "dessin de lui plaire"; he has
taken an "engagement envers son amour propre." In other words, he is
playing the game from the lower point of view--the mere point of view of
winning. It does not take him very long to win. Ellenore at first
behaves unexceptionably, refuses to receive him after his first
declaration, and retires to the country. But she returns, and the
exemplary Adolphe has recourse to the threat which, if his creator's
biographers may be believed, Constant himself was very fond of employing
in similar cases, and which the great popularity of _Werther_ made
terrible to the compassionate and foolish feminine mind. He will kill
himself. She hesitates, and very soon she does not hesitate any longer.
The reader feels that Adolphe is quite worthless, that nothing but the
fact of his having been brought up in a time when Sensibility was
dominant saves him. But the following passage, from the point of view
alike of nature and of expression, again pacifies the critic:[412]

I passed several hours at her feet, declaring myself the
happiest of men, lavishing on her assurances of eternal
affection, devotion, and respect. She told me what she had
suffered in trying