Explore "Armance" by Stendhal on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time lie but to sleep, and feed? a beast, no more. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find honour in a straw When honour's at the stake. HAMLET, Act IV.
And so he had been so weak as to violate the oaths he had so often sworn! A single moment had upset the work of his whole life. He had forfeited all right to his own esteem. Henceforward the world of men was closed to him; he was not worthy to inhabit it. Nought remained to him but solitude and a hermit's abode in some wilderness. The intensity of the grief that he felt and its suddenness might well have caused some disturbance in the stoutest heart. Fortunately Octave saw at once that if he did not reply quickly and with the calmest air to Madame d'Aumale, Armance's reputation might suffer. He spent all his time with her, and Madame d'Aumale's speech had been seized upon by two or three people who detested him as well as Armance.