“No, no; Alissa has not changed in that.”
“Why, then nothing has changed,” I said, seizing her arm....
She went on more firmly:
“One word would explain everything; why don’t you dare say it?”
“What word?”
“I have grown older.”
“Hush!”
I protested immediately that I myself had grown as much older as she,
that the difference of age between us remained the same ... but she
had regained control of herself; the one and only moment had gone by,
and by beginning to argue I let slip my advantage; the ground gave way
beneath me.
* * * * *
Two days later I left Fongueusemare, discontented with her and with
myself, full of a vague hatred against what I still called “virtue,”
and of resentment against the habitual occupation of my heart. It
seemed as though during this last meeting, and through the very
exaggeration of my love, I had come to the end of all my fervour;
each one of Alissa’s phrases, against which I had at first rebelled,
remained alive and triumphant within me, after my protestations had
died away. Yes, no doubt, she was right! It was nothing but a phantom
that I cared for; the Alissa that I had loved, that I still loved, was
no more.... Yes, no doubt we had grown old! This frightful obliteration
of all poetry which had chilled my very heart, was nothing, after all,
but a return to the natural course of things; if by slow degrees I had
exalted her, if out of her I had made myself an idol, and adorned it
with all that I was enamoured of, what now remained to me as the result
of my labours but my fatigue? As soon as she was left to herself,
Alissa had relapsed to her own level--a mediocre level, on which I
found myself too, but on which I no longer desired her. Ah! how absurd
and fantastic seemed this exhausting effort of virtue in order to
reach her there, on the heights where she had been placed by my own
sole endeavour. A little less pride and our love would have been easy
... but what sense was there in persisting in a love without object?
This was to be obstinate not to be faithful. Faithful to what? To a
delusion. Was it not wiser to admit to myself that I had been mistaken?
In the meantime I had been offered a place in the School of Athens; I
agreed to take it up at once, with no feeling of either ambition or
pleasure, but welcoming the idea of departure as though it had been an
escape.