wretched; he is tormented; he wills; he suffers; for to will is to
suffer. Yes, I am jealous. I know what there is in my jealousy. When I
examine it, I find in it hereditary prejudices, savage conceit, sickly
susceptibility, a mingling of rudest violence and cruel feebleness,
imbecile and wicked revolt against the laws of life and of society. But
it does not matter that I know it for what it is: it exists and it
torments me. I am the chemist who, studying the properties of an acid
which he has drunk, knows how it was combined and what salts form it.
Nevertheless the acid burns him, and will burn him to the bone."

"My love, you are absurd."

"Yes, I am absurd. I feel it better than you feel it yourself. To
desire a woman in all the brilliancy of her beauty and her wit, mistress
of herself, who knows and who dares; more beautiful in that and more
desirable, and whose choice is free, voluntary, deliberate; to desire
her, to love her for what she is, and to suffer because she is not
puerile candor nor pale innocence, which would be shocking in her if it
were possible to find them there; to ask her at the same time that she be
herself and not be herself; to adore her as life has made her, and regret
bitterly that life, which has made her so beautiful, has touched her--
Oh, this is absurd! I love you! I love you with all that you bring to
me of sensations, of habits, with all that comes of your experiences,
with all that comes from him-perhaps, from them-how do I know? These
things are my delight and they are my torture. There must be a profound
sense in the public idiocy which says that love like ours is guilty. Joy
is guilty when it is immense. That is the reason why I suffer, my
beloved."

She knelt before him, took his hands, and drew him to her.