distrustful, but on the contrary bold and frank, suspecting nothing.
I had to see my mistress betray me before my eyes before I would believe
that she could deceive me. Desgenais himself, while preaching to me
after his manner, joked me about the ease with which I could be duped.
The story of my life was an incontestable proof that I was credulous
rather than suspicious; and when the words in that book suddenly struck
me, it seemed to me I felt a new being within me, a sort of unknown self;
my reason revolted against the feeling, and I did not dare ask whither
all this was leading me.

But the suffering I had endured, the memory of the perfidy that I had
witnessed, the frightful cure I had imposed on myself, the opinions of my
friends, the corrupt life I had led, the sad truths I had learned, as
well as those that I had unconsciously surmised during my sad experience,
ending in debauchery, contempt of love, abuse of everything, that is what
I had in my heart although I did not suspect it; and at the moment when
life and hope were again being born within me, all these furies that were
being atrophied by time seized me by the throat and cried that they were
yet alive.

I bent over and opened the book, then immediately closed it and threw it
on the table. Brigitte was looking at me; in her beautiful eyes was
neither wounded pride nor anger; nothing but tender solicitude, as if I
were ill.

"Do you think I have secrets?" she asked, embracing me.

"No," I replied, "I know nothing except that you are beautiful and that I
would die loving you."