Adolphe

by Benjamin Constant

Nowhere else could I find such deep and sweet affection. How many years of happiness lost, even if I recover what I have so foolishly thrown away!

In Ellenore the instinct of every woman to seek security, stability, normality, permanency, is intensified by her unsettled childhood and ambiguous, insecure social position.

In Adolphe every man’s basic vanity, promiscuity, desire for independence, and resentment of trammels is heightened in a motherless son of a cold and distant father, whose longing for affection has never been satisfied, but who is terrified of becoming involved, and that is why he seeks out the easy and flattering conquest of an older woman socially isolated because of her irregular sexual life.

The tragedy of sexual love is that the man by his very nature pursues, wins, and immediately tires, whereas the woman, more slowly aroused, only yields when she has made up her mind. He, once his vanity and desires are sa...

They feel that a being which suffers because it loves, is sacred.

One thinks that ties thoughtlessly formed can be painlessly broken. But when one sees the agony resulting from such broken ties, the pain and bewilderment of a soul deceived, the mistrust that follows such utter confidence and, when forced to turn against the one person who stands apart from the rest of society, extends to society as a whole; when one sees esteem turned back upon itself and not knowing where else to find an object, then indeed one feels that there is something sacred in a heart that suffers because it loves; one discovers how deep are the roots of a passion one thought one inspired but did not share.

His letters were affectionate and full of sensible and sympathetic advice, but no sooner were we in each other’s presence than there came over him a sort of reserve which I could not account for and which had a chilling effect on me.

Maybe he did not know how to express his affections in person?

At that time I did not know what shyness was – that inner suffering which dogs us even into old age, which takes our deepest feelings and rams them back into our hearts, which freezes the words on our lips, distorts everything we try to say, and only lets us express ourselves in general terms and more or less bitter sarcasm, as though we meant to take revenge on our very emotions for the pain we feel through not being able to communicate them.

Man’s emotions are so confused and tangled, they are made up of countless impressions unrecognized by the observer, and language, always too crude and generalized, can point them out but never really define them.

In a word, Ellenore was continually fighting against her destiny. Every one of her words and deeds was, so to speak, a protest against the class to which she found herself relegated, and as she felt that the facts of the case were stronger than she was and that whatever she tried to do could not alter the position in any way, she was very unhappy.

This contrast between her real sentiments and the place she occupied in society had made her emotionally unstable.

My desire to please her gave me a new interest in life and enlivened my existence in a quite unaccustomed way.

Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.

This rings true even to my own experience

there is never any real consistency in mankind, and hardly anybody is wholly sincere or wholly deceitful.

I was amazed by the intensity of my own suffering, recollecting the times when I had told myself that I was only out for a conquest, that this was just a campaign which I could call off without any trouble. I had no conception then of the violent pain which was implacably tearing my heart asunder.

He found himself an intense first love for him to experience

She is the slave of her emotions, and her heart is always so restless that she finds something akin to peace in devotion to others.

My pride was involved and I was embarrassed and humiliated by the prospect of seeing once again the woman who had treated me like a baby.

I'm sorry but this made me laugh XD

but an hour after hearing that she was coming back the vision of her was floating before my eyes, holding sway over my heart. I was terrified of not seeing her.

‘You see,’ I said as I gave her my hand to lead her back to the drawing-room, ‘my whole life is in your hands. What have I done that you should take pleasure in making that life a torment?’

Oh wow this is actually sweet. Until I am reminded that she is in a relationship and ten years older than him.

I have no hopes, no requests to make except to see you, but see you I must if I am to go on living.’

for love has a sort of magic which makes up for long-standing memories. All other human affections need a history, but love, like an enchantment, can create a past to surround us with.

Love is only a single speck of light, yet it seems to illumine the whole of time.

you do not realize all I am going through. With you or away from you I am equally miserable. During the hours of separation from you I wander to and fro, weighed down by the burden of an intolerable existence. Company I find irksome, but solitude drives me mad.

even with you I have to live a life of strain with never a moment of abandon when I can let my feelings go!

THE magic of love – who could ever describe it? Certainty of having found the one being destined for us by nature, sudden light shed upon life itself and apparently explaining its mystery,

Her happiness was essential to me and I knew I was essential for her happiness.

‘Whatever happens you will be going away soon; don’t let us anticipate that moment and don’t worry about me. Let us save a few days and hours – days and hours are all I need. Some presentiment tells me, Adolphe, that I shall die in your arms.’

Ladies and gentemen, let us stand to witness exhibit A of emotional manipulation.

There are things which are not said for a very long time, but once they are said they are constantly repeated.

but when it comes to reviving a dying love what is the good of determination aroused by a sense of duty?

The moment some secret exists between two loving hearts, the moment one of them can decide to conceal one single thought from the other, the spell is broken and the bliss destroyed. Anger, injustice, even wandering affections can be put right again, but dissimulation brings into love a foreign element which perverts and withers it even in its own eyes.

It is a dreadful misfortune not to be loved when we are in love, but it is a very great one to be loved passionately when we have ceased to love.

I had risked my life for Ellenore, but I would have given it a thousand times over to make her happy without me.

Ouch....

Such is the strangeness of our unhappy nature that it is heartrending to leave somebody we have been finding no pleasure in staying with.

He doesn't love her the way he used to anymore. But he can't tell her because he still cares about her...