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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 119
you! I’ve wanted you from the first moment I set eyes
on you ! The story of Sehna, the Finlander, is nothing
but a fairy tale . . . the friendship of our dear Baron a
lie . . . he loathes me, the man of the middle-classes,
the provincial, the déclassé, as I loathe him, the
aristocrat !
"
This avalanche of revelations excited her very little,
for it told her nothing new : she had been aware of it
without my avowal.
And we separated with the firm resolution not to meet
again until she had told her husband everything.
I spent the evening at home, anxious and uneasy, wait-
ing for telegrams from the seat of war. To distract my
thoughts, I emptied a sack containing old books and
papers on the floor, and sat down among this litter to
examine and classify it. But I found it impossible to
concentrate my thoughts on my task ; I stretched myself
out at full length, resting the back of my head on my
hands and, my eyes fixed with a hypnotic stare on the
candles burning in the old chandelier, I lost myself in a
reverie. I was longing for her kisses, and thinking out
plans of making her my own. As she was sensitive and
strange, I felt that the utmost delicacy would be neces-
sary, that I must allow matters to arrange themselves ;
that a single clumsy movement would spoil everything.
I lighted a cigarette and imagined that I was lying in
a meadow ; it amused me to view my little room from
below. Everything seemed new to me. The sofa, the
witness of many pleasant hours, brought me back to my
dreams of love, which, however, were quickly paralysed
by the fear that happiness would be wrecked on the rocks
of my uncompromising principles.
Analysing the thought which had checked my ardour,
I discovered in it a great deal of cowardice, fear of the
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