Instantly, jealousy rushed
into her heart with monastic violence. Jealousy, eminently credulous
and suspicious, is the passion in which fancy has most freedom, but
for all that it does not give a person intelligence; on the contrary,
it hinders them from having any; and in Sylvie's case jealousy only
filled her with fantastic ideas. When (a few mornings later) she heard
Brigaut's ditty, she jumped to the conclusion that the man who had
used the words "Madam' le mariee," addressing them to Pierrette, must
be the colonel. She was certain she was right, for she had noticed for
a week past a change in his manners. He was the only man who, in her
solitary life, had ever paid her any attention. Consequently she
watched him with all her eyes, all her mind; and by giving herself up
to hopes that were sometimes flourishing, sometimes blighted, she had
brought the matter to such enormous proportions that she saw all
things in a mental mirage. To use a common but excellent expression,
by dint of looking intently she saw nothing. Alternately she repelled,
admitted, and conquered the supposition of this rivalry. She compared
herself with Pierrette; she was forty-two years old, with gray hair;
Pierrette was delicately fair, with eyes soft enough to warm a
withered heart. She had heard it said that men of fifty were apt to
love young girls of just that kind. Before the colonel had come
regularly to the house Sylvie had heard in the Tiphaines' salon
strange stories of his life and morals.
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