Blérot had been my most intimate friend from childhood; we had no
secrets from each other, and were united heart and soul by a brotherly
intimacy and a boundless confidence in each other, and I had been
intrusted with the secret of all his love affairs, as he had been with
mine.
When he told me that he was going to get married I was hurt, just as if
he had been guilty of a treacherous act with regard to me. I felt that
it must interfere with that cordial and absolute affection which had
united us hitherto. His wife would come between us. The intimacy of the
marriage-bed establishes a kind of complicity of mysterious alliance
between two persons, even when they have ceased to love each other. Man
and wife are like two discreet partners who will not let anyone else
into their secrets. But that close bond which the conjugal kiss fastens
is widely loosened on the day on which the woman takes a lover.
I remember Blérot's wedding as if it were but yesterday. I would not be
present at the signing of the marriage contract, as I have no particular
liking for such ceremonies, but I only went to the civil wedding and to
the church.
His wife, whom I had never seen before, was a tall, slight girl, with
pale hair, pale cheeks, pale hands, and eyes to match. She walked with a
slightly undulating motion, as if she were on board a ship, and seemed
to advance with a succession of long, graceful curtsies.
Blérot seemed very much in love with her. He looked at her constantly,
and I felt a shiver of an immoderate desire for her pass through my
frame.