All
the time that I was away from Gilberte, I wanted to see her, because,
having incessantly sought to form a mental picture of her, I was unable,
in the end, to do so, and did not know exactly to what my love
corresponded. Besides, she had never yet told me that she loved me. Far
from it, she had often boasted that she knew other little boys whom she
preferred to myself, that I was a good companion, with whom she was always
willing to play, although I was too absent-minded, not attentive enough to
the game. Moreover, she had often shewn signs of apparent coldness towards
me, which might have shaken my faith that I was for her a creature
different from the rest, had that faith been founded upon a love that
Gilberte had felt for me, and not, as was the case, upon the love that I
felt for her, which strengthened its resistance to the assaults of doubt
by making it depend entirely upon the manner in which I was obliged, by an
internal compulsion, to think of Gilberte. But my feelings with regard to
her I had never yet ventured to express to her in words. Of course, on
every page of my exercise-books, I wrote out, in endless repetition, her
name and address, but at the sight of those vague lines which I might
trace, without her having to think, on that account, of me, I felt
discouraged, because they spoke to me, not of Gilberte, who would never so
much as see them, but of my own desire, which they seemed to shew me in
its true colours, as something purely personal, unreal, tedious and
ineffective.
Pages:
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775