Suddenly in the midst of the most violent and the most thwarted passion
come moments, when a man believes that he is in love no longer--as it
were a spring of fresh water in the middle of the sea. To think of his
mistress is no longer very much pleasure, and, although he is worn-out
by the severity of her treatment, the fact that everything in life
has lost its interest is a still greater misery. After a manner of
existence which, fitful though it was, gave to all nature a new aspect,
passionate and absorbing, now follows the dreariest and most despondent
void.
It may be that your last visit to the woman, whom you love, left you
in a situation, from which, once before, your imagination had gathered
the full harvest of sensation. For example, after a period of coldness,
she has treated you less badly, letting you conceive exactly the
same degree of hope and by the same external signs as on a previous
occasion--all this perhaps unconsciously. Imagination picks up memory
and its sinister warnings by the way, and instantly crystallisation[1]
ceases.
[1] First, I am advised to cut out this word; next, if I fail in this
for want of literary power, to repeat again and again that I mean by
crystallisation a certain fever in the imagination, which transforms
past recognition what is, as often as not, a quite ordinary object,
and makes of it a thing apart. A man who looks to excite this fever in
souls, which know no other path but vanity to reach their happiness,
must tie his necktie well and constantly give his attention to a
thousand details, which preclude all possibility of unrestraint.
Society women own to the effect, denying at the same time or not seeing
the cause.
[Pg 53]