I became as bad and spiteful as if the spirit of hatred had possession
of me, and envied those whose life was too happy, and who had no cares
to trouble them. I could not conceal my pleasure when one of those
domestic dramas occurred, in which hearts bleed and are broken, in which
odious treachery and bitter sufferings are brought to light.
Divorce proceedings with their miserable episodes, with the wranglings
of the lawyers and all the unhappiness that they revealed and which
exposed the vanity of dreams, the tricks of women, the lowness of some
minds, the foul animal that sits and slumbers in most hearts, attracted
me like a delightful play, a piece which rivets one from the first to
the last act. I listened greedily to passionate letters, those mad
prayers whose secrets some lawyer violates and which he reads aloud in a
mocking tone, and which he gives pell-mell to the bench and to the
public, who have come to be amused or excited and to stare at the
victims of love.
I followed those romances of adultery which were unfolded chapter by
chapter, in their brutal reality, of things that had actually occurred,
and for the first time I forgot my own unhappiness in them. Sometimes
the husband and wife were there, as if they wished to defy each other,
to meet in some last encounter, and pale and feverish they watched each
other, devoured each other with their eyes, hiding their grief and their
misery. Sometimes again, the lover or the mistress were there and tore
their gloves in their rage, wishing to rush at the bar to defend their
love, to bring forward accusations in their turn, and would tell the
advocate that he was lying, and would threaten him and revile him with
all their indignant nature. Friends, however, would restrain them, would
whisper something to them in a low voice, press their hands like after a
funeral, and try to appease them.
It seemed to me, as if I were looking at a heap of ruins, or breathing
in the odor of an ambulance, in which dying men were groaning, and that
those unhappy people were assuaging my trouble somewhat, and taking
their share of it.
I used to read the advertisements in the Agony Columns in the
newspapers, where the same exalted phrases used to recur, where I read
the same despairing _adieux_, earnest requests for a meeting, echoes of
past affection, and vain vows; and all this relieved me, vaguely
appeased me, and made me think less about myself, that hateful,
incurable _I_ which I longed to destroy!