om his mind, leaving,
as he thought, everything else in the same state as when it was there.
But the absence of one part from a whole is not only that, it is not
simply a partial omission, it is a disturbance of all the other parts, a
new state which it was impossible to foresee from the old.

But at other times--when Odette was on the point of going away for a
holiday--it was after some trifling quarrel for which he had chosen the
pretext, that he decided not to write to her and not to see her until
her return, giving the appearance (and expecting the reward) of
a serious rupture, which she would perhaps regard as final, to a
separation, the greater part of which was inevitable, since she was
going away, which, in fact, he was merely allowing to start a little
sooner than it must. At once he could imagine Odette, puzzled, anxious,
distressed at having received neither visit nor letter from him and this
picture of her, by calming his jealousy, made it easy for him to break
himself of the habit of seeing her. At odd moments, no doubt, in the
furthest recesses of his brain, where his determination had thrust
it away, and thanks to the length of the interval, the three weeks'
separation to which he had agreed, it was with pleasure that he would
consider the idea that he would see Odette again on her return; but it
was also with so little impatience that he began to ask himself whether
he would not readily consent to the doubling of the period of so easy an
abstinence. It had lasted, so far, but three days, a much shorter time
than he had often, before, passed without seeing Odette, and without
having, as on this occasion he had, premeditated a separation. And
yet, there and then, some tiny trace of contrariety in his mind, or
of weakness in his body,--by inciting him to regard the present as an
exceptional moment, one not to be governed by the rules, one in which
prudence itself would allow him to take advantage of the soothing
effects of a pleasure and to give his will (until the time should come
when its efforts might serve any purpose) a holiday--suspended the
action of his will, which ceased to exert its inhibitive control; or,
without that even, the thought of some information for which he had
forgotten to ask Odette, such as if she had decided in what colour she
would have her carriage repainted, or, with regard to some investment,
whether they were 'ordinary' or 'preference' shares that she wished him
to buy (for it