and the gold scrollwork; but their thought did me wrong. I was never jealous then: jealousy can only be born of suspicion, and I had in her a spotless, implicit, perfect faith, to which suspicion was impossible.
But she was to me so sacred and so precious, that a light look or a loose word cast at her cut me like a sword. The face that had first looked on me amidst the lilac-blossoms always seemed to me a thing of sanctity, a gift of Heaven. I would fain have had the city crowds bend before it as reverently as the poor peasants bend before the images of Mary.
I was never jealous. It had seemed wonderful to me that she could give her beauty to any creature so ungainly in person and so ill-favoured by fortune as myself—a miracle, indeed, for which I thanked Heaven daily. But that, having thus bestowed herself, she would be faithless, was a thought against her of which I never once was guilty. I am thankful to remember that—now.
Thankful to have been a dolt, a fool, a mad man? you will say. Ah, well! it is our moments of blindness and of folly that are the sole ones of happiness for all of us on earth. We only see clearly, I think, when we have reached the depths of woe.
The time went by in Paris, and I was successful
