ushed with the
excitement of my new position, I felt that I could trust myself to do
so, I went to see the poor girl whom I meant to cast off. With a woman's
quickness she saw what was passing in my mind, and hid her tears from
me. She could not but have despised me; but it was her nature to be
gentle and kindly, and she never showed her scorn. Her forbearance was a
cruel punishment. An unresisting victim is not a pleasant thing; whether
the murder is done decorously in the drawing-room, or brutally on the
highway, there should be a struggle to give some plausible excuse for
taking a life. I renewed my visits very affectionately at first, making
efforts to be gracious, if not tender; by slow degrees I became politely
civil; and one day, by a sort of tacit agreement between us, she allowed
me to treat her as a stranger, and I thought that I had done all that
could be expected of me. Nevertheless I abandoned myself to my new life
with almost frenzied eagerness, and sought to drown in gaiety any vague
lingering remorse that I felt. A man who has lost his self-respect
cannot endure his own society, so I led the dissipated life that wealthy
young men lead in Paris. Owing to a good education and an excellent
memory, I seemed cleverer than I really was, forthwith I looked down
upon other people; and those who, for their own purposes, wished to
prove to me that I was possessed of extraordinary abilities, found
me quite convinced on that head. Praise is the most insidious of all
methods of treachery known to the world; and this is nowhere better
understood than in Paris, where intriguing schemers know how to stifle
every kind of talent at its birth by heaping laurels on its cradle. So
I did nothing worthy of my reputation; I reaped no advantages from the
golden opinions entertained of me, and made no acquaintances likely
to be useful in my future career. I wasted my energies in numberless
frivolous pursuits, and in the short-lived love intrigues that are the
disgrace of salons in Paris, where every one seeks for love, grows blase
in the pursuit, falls into the libertinism sanctioned by polite society,
and ends by feeling as much astonished at real passion as the world is
over a heroic action. I did as others did. Often I dealt to generous and
candid souls the deadly wound from which I myself was slowly perishing.
Yet though deceptive appearances might lead others to misjudge me, I
could never overcome my scrupulous delicacy. Many