I used
all my time, and exerted every effort and all my powers of
observation, to penetrate the impenetrable character of Foedora.
Alternate hope and despair had swayed my opinions; for me she was
sometimes the tenderest, sometimes the most unfeeling of women. But
these transitions from joy to sadness became unendurable; I sought to
end the horrible conflict within me by extinguishing love. By the
light of warning gleams my soul sometimes recognized the gulfs that
lay between us. The countess confirmed all my fears; I had never yet
detected any tear in her eyes; an affecting scene in a play left her
smiling and unmoved. All her instincts were selfish; she could not
divine another's joy or sorrow. She had made a fool of me, in fact!
"I had rejoiced over a sacrifice to make for her, and almost
humiliated myself in seeking out my kinsman, the Duc de Navarreins, a
selfish man who was ashamed of my poverty, and had injured me too
deeply not to hate me. He received me with the polite coldness that
makes every word and gesture seem an insult; he looked so ill at ease
that I pitied him. I blushed for this pettiness amid grandeur, and
penuriousness surrounded by luxury. He began to talk to me of his
heavy losses in the three per cents, and then I told him the object of
my visit.
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