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“Unique and true love,” said de Marsay, “produces a sort of corporeal apathy attuned to the contemplation into which one falls. Then the mind complicates everything; it works on itself, pictures its fancies, turns them into reality and torment; and such jealousy is as delightful as it is distressing.”
Love compels cruelty to those who do not understand love.
The vocabulary of infidelity is almost exclusively sexual. The only type of unfaithfulness that can be reasonably communicated to others is a mate's extramarital sexual experience. Adultery is something that everyone understands and generally condemns. The wife who complains that her husband appears more interested in his work than in her may find sympathetic ears, but this is generally never thought a good reason for drastic action. Such an abstract complaint never moves the listener, but the concrete accusation of sexual infidelity is a worldshaker. Whatever the provocation or internal marital circumstance, the mate with such a complaint is clearly the righteous victim, recognized as such by the courts and society. For these reasons, many kinds of unfaithfulness in marriage have no voice, whereas sexual infidelity often assumes an exaggerated importance. As a matter of