Explore "Armance" by Stendhal on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_But passion most dissembles, yet betrays Even by its darkness; as the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest, it displays Its workings through the vainly guarded eye, And in whatever aspect it arrays Itself,'tis still the same hypocrisy; Coldness or anger, even disdain or hate, Are masks it often wears, and still too late._ DON JUAN, I, 73.
Octave remained motionless, his eyes brimming with tears, and not knowing whether he ought to rejoice or to mourn. After so long a period of waiting, he had at last been able to give battle, that battle for which he had so longed; but had he lost or won it? "If it is lost," he told himself, "there is nothing more for me in this direction. Armance thinks me so reprehensible that she pretends to be satisfied with the first excuse that I offer her, and does not deign to enter upon an explanation with a man so little worthy of her friendship. What is the meaning of those brief words: _You have all my esteem_? Could anything be colder? Is that a complete return to our old intimacy? Is it a polite way of cutting short a disagreeable explanation?" The departure, so abruptly, of Armance seemed to him to be an especially evil omen.