Eugène Sue

“ Alas! while in the midst of so much felicity I needed no friend to talk about it, but since,—oh, since all this affliction has come to me I have been so lonely! If you only knew what a life I have led! Obliged to hide my grief, my sad regrets, as I used to hide my delights! To whom could I tell them? Who was there to console me? The world sometimes has pity for a guilty love, but for a sacred sorrow like mine it has nothing but abuse, for it is either ridiculous or a lie. Weep thus for one's husband! Regret him so bitterly! Live only in the remembrance of one who was so dear! ”

“ Your eyes raised to heaven, your clasped hands, your tears,—it was a beautiful piece of acting; so, as I had no faith in your grief, but a great deal in your talent for mystification, I waited to see the comedy acted out."
"A comedy!" said she, not seeming to understand my words.
"A mystification, madame, of which I should have been the ridiculous object, had I been weak enough to offer to console you, or to make you any sentimental speeches on the subject of melancholy, misanthropy, lost illusions, and other strange nightmares that were supposed to be wearing my life away." ”

“ How many long evenings have I passed thus at Hélène's side! How intoxicating were these waves of melody, now sweet and sonorous, now dying in sudden silence! I remember that these pauses caused us to feel the most delicious sadness. The ear at last becomes weary of sounds, no matter how harmonious they may be, but music, interrupted now and then by a pause, which gives one the time to think of what has gone before, to listen, as it were, in your heart to the echo of those last plaintive vibrations,—music thus interrupted has an added charm, and makes one sigh for more. ”

“ But Catherine appeared not to hear me, and continued with an ever increasing excitement which alarmed me:
"This friend, so good, so noble, has he ever attempted by a single word to speak of his admirable conduct? He has been the protecting genius of this woman and her child when both were suffering; and when he has saved them,—for to save the child is to save the mother,—he goes, proudly, silent, and reserved, happy doubtless in the good he has done, but seeming to fear the thanklessness or disdain the gratitude he has inspired." ”

“ Until now the dazzling purity of your life has sufficed to guard you. How could you have given rise to slander? But reflect now. I have come with you all the way from Khios, all the way from Toulon to Paris. I am aware that I am of not the slightest importance; you know me now well enough to believe that I do not exaggerate my importance for the sake of a miserable paltry vanity. But what is that to the world so long as it can malign? Does it not know, moreover, that slander is all the more odious when the object of the guilty love it supposes is least worthy of that love? ”

“ I should have remained towards you the master of this farm, and would never have become your friend."
"There can be no safe, no possible friendship except between equals, M. le comte," said Madame Kerouët, with great coolness.
"But in what way are our positions different at the present hour? If my friendship was pleasant to you until now, why should we change our relations? Why should we forget four or five months of charming intimacy?"
"I shall not forget them, M. le comte, but they shall give place to sentiments more suitable to the modest position of Marie and myself." ”

“ You are young, but you have neither the enthusiasm nor the trustfulness of youth. There is a contrast in your nature that I have not yet been able to explain. When you take part in a conversation of young men who are jovial, careless, and free, your face brightens up, you say things that are wilder and gayer than the gayest and the wildest; and then, when you have said the last words, you put on an air of coldness, of weariness, and seem as though you were bored to death, so that no one knows what to think of gaiety which is so closely followed by such gloomy sadness. ”

“ She turned her great moist eyes on me; she appeared paler than usual; her bosom heaved; she looked at me as though her gaze would penetrate the depths of my heart.
"Oh, Hélène!" I began again, and I know not what insurmountable timidity prevented me from saying a single word more.
She then, with a look of grief and despair I can never forget, cried out, "Ah, you will never love any one! You will be miserable always!"
Then, as if frightened at her own words, she gave a stroke of the whip to her pony, and dashed off at a gallop. ”

“ I am quite in despair, madame, at not being able to answer that question. I enjoy these pleasures that you apparently despise, and hope to enjoy them for a long time yet, and more than any one, for it is in the lightness and the ease with which the world's fetters are broken that their charm consists. 'Pardon the outrageous stupidity of the comparison,' as Lord Falmouth says, but if ever the used-up expression, 'a chain of flowers,' was justified, it was in applying it to the obligations of society, which are as bright, as gay, as frail, and as easy to wear. ”

“ I answered M. de Cernay. The count stepped forward, looked at her through his glass, and said:
"That is true. There is no one in the world can brave a thing out as she can! The very evening after poor Merteuil's death, after all the stories that are going around,—for it is the talk of all Paris,—to dare to come here to the opera, in her own box! It passes everything!"
I carefully noticed M. de Cernay's face, and believed I saw there an expression of spite, not to say hatred, which I had already seen when he spoke of Madame de Pënâfiel. ”

“ If he is killed I shall never forgive myself! Ismaël! Ismaël!' Till at last," said M. de Pommerive, "the marquise was so beside herself that she was half hanging out of the window of her carriage, waving her arms, and stretching them out towards her dear Turk, with such an accompaniment of sobs and stifled cries that people took her for a woman who had suddenly become insane. She was as pale as death, her features were all convulsed, and, with her eyes starting almost out of her head and streaming with tears, you can imagine what she looked like and what a sensation she created. ”

“ Will your sentiments not be the same as mine were? And if you ever have a son, will he not feel the same grief when you die? Believe me, my child, true wisdom consists in being thus able to envisage the inexorable reality of things, and never to indulge in vain hopes. When you once understand this truth, when it once causes the phantom of falsehood to dissolve, then you will neither hate nor despise men for being thus constituted, because you know yourself to be like them,—you will then pity them and help them, for you will often feel greatly unhappy! If you find men ungrateful, alas! ”

“ I was conscious of having conducted myself nobly towards Catherine, of not deserving her severe disapproval, and this comforting consciousness gave me a proud and courageous resignation.
I have always faced boldly the most cruel phases of my life. No hope was left to me of ever gaining Madame de Fersen's love. I therefore gathered religiously in my heart and memory the slightest traces of this ineffable love, as one gathers the sacred and precious remnants of a departed being, to come daily and contemplate them with dreamy sadness, and ask of them the melancholy charm of memory. ”

“ I dwelt with a sort of cruel enjoyment on all I had so unworthily sacrificed, not to distrust, but to a species of monomania as wicked as it was stupid; to be sure, it had brought terrible suffering on me, but what of that? A crazy man suffers, too; but is the harm he does any the less harmful?
What more can I say? The vision of that seductive woman appeared more beautiful, more voluptuous, than ever before. The saddening vulgarity of the saying that we only know the worth of happiness when we have lost it, was the dolorous theme upon which my despair played every sort of variation. ”

“ Then, also, the tears caused by this suffering flow abundantly, and without any trouble; the soul is disposed to the most touching emotions of pity, or is full of commiseration and of love; in a word, all misfortunes are the cherished and respected sisters of our misfortune.
On the contrary, if you suffer for an unworthy cause, your heart is drowned in hatred; your concentrated grief resembles dumb fury which shame bridles with a sharp bit that vanity conceals; envy and hatred gnaw you, but your eyes are dry, and the unhappiness of others can alone draw from you a sad and mournful smile. ”

“ Scarcely had I left Paris with Lord Falmouth, than, by a miserable caprice, I regretted having undertaken this journey; not that I feared its results, but I should have preferred to be alone, in order to have looked my sorrow well in the face, to have struggled with it hand to hand, and, perhaps, to have triumphed over it.
I have often found when one suffers, nothing is more fatal than to wish to be distracted from one's grief.
If during some moments you become stupefied by your misfortunes, the awakening is horrible. ”

“ The existence I scorn would be the joy and pride of most men, and yet, from I know not what caprice, which thus insults the ready-made happiness that fate has bestowed upon me, I prefer to wander thus on foot, dragging my incurable sadness through these muddy streets.
A woman who was both beautiful and young, noble and clever, who united in herself all that could flatter a man's vanity, has deigned to ravish me with the most perfect love, and, after two months of ideal bliss, without reason or shame, I have insanely and brutally trampled this love under my feet with anger and scorn! ”

“ A circumstance that I thought strange was that, in spite of all that was said about her levity, I had never seen a single man who appeared to be on terms of intimacy with her, or any one in whom she could be supposed to take any affectionate interest.
If, then, I loved Madame de Pënâfiel, it was not with that fresh, pure, passionate love I had felt for Hélène, it was a sentiment in which love and curiosity were strangely allied to distrust; for, although I condemned the absurd calumnies of the world, I was often quite as foolish and quite as unjust as other people. ”

“ Had Hélène married a man who was rich, idle, and well born, in the same social position as myself, I should never have had such thoughts; therefore, I was enraged when I reflected that fame would put an enormous and insurmountable distance between this Frank and myself. Sooner or later, he would be able to bestow on Hélène, not only the fortune that I could have given her, but the distinction of a great name, a name to be illustrious for ever, perhaps one of those glorious names that thrills with pride the woman who bears it! ”