Confession of a Child of the Century, Book II

But quarrel had been, so to speak, less sad than our reconciliation; it was attended, on Brigitte's part, by a mystery which frightened me at first and then planted in my soul the seeds of constant dread.

There developed in me, in spite of my struggles, the two elements of misfortune which the past had bequeathed me: at times furious jealousy attended by reproaches and insults; at other times a cruel gayety, an affected cheerfulness, that mockingly outraged whatever I held most dear. Thus the inexorable spectres of the past pursued me without respite; thus Brigitte, seeing herself treated alternately as a faithless mistress and a shameless woman, fell into a condition of melancholy that clouded our entire life; and worst of all, that sadness even, the cause of which I knew, was not the most burdensome of our sorrows. I was young and I loved pleasure; that daily association with a woman older than I, who suffered and languished, that face, more and more serious, which was always before me, all this repelled my youth and aroused within me bitter regrets for the liberty I had lost.