Good,
tender, combative, irritable, always in extremes--he knew it, and that
made him worse--tearful, sarcastic, sceptical, yet believing, he was
surprised when he saw himself in the mirror of his writings. All his
vitality, hitherto prudently shut into his _bourgeois_ life, now burst
forth, developed by moral solitude and the hygiene of action.
Clerambault saw that he had not known himself; he was, as it were,
new-born, since that night of anguish. He learned to taste a joy of
which he had never before had an idea--the giddy joy of the free
lance in a fight; all his senses strung like a bow, glad in a perfect
well-being.
This improved state, however, brought no advantage to Clerambault's
family; his wife's share of the struggle was only the unpleasantness,
a general animosity that finally made itself felt even among the
small tradespeople of the neighbourhood. Rosine drooped; her secret
heart-ache wore upon her all the more because of her silence; but if
she said nothing her mother complained enough for two. She made no
distinction between the fools who affronted her and the imprudent
Clerambault who caused all the trouble; so that at every meal there
were awkward remarks meant to induce him to keep still. All this was
of no use, reproaches whether spoken or silent, passed over his head;
he was sorry, of course, but he had thrown himself into the thick
of the fight, and with a somewhat childish egotism he thrust aside
anything that interfered with this new interest.
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