What am I to you in the midst of them?
forgotten on the least occasion! Yesterday I came to the Bois and you were not here--" "But--" "I had put on a new dress expressly to please you; you did not come; where were you ?" "But--" "I did not know where.

I went to Madame d'Espard's; you were not there." "But--" "That evening at the Opera, I watched the balcony; every time a door opened my heart was beating!" "But--" "What an evening I had! You don't reflect on such tempests of the heart." "But--" "Life is shortened by such emotions." "But--" "Well, what ?" she said.
"You are right; life is shortened by them," said Nathan, "and in a few months you will utterly have consumed mine.

Your unreasonable reproaches drag my secret from me--Ha! you say you are not loved; you are loved too well." And thereupon he vividly depicted his position, told of his sleepless nights, his duties at certain hours, the absolute necessity of succeeding in his enterprise, the insatiable requirements of a newspaper in which he was required to judge the events of the whole world without blundering, under pain of losing his power, and so losing all, the infinite amount of rapid study he was forced to give to questions which passed as rapidly as clouds in this all-consuming age, etc., etc.
Raoul made a great mistake.

The Marquise d'Espard had said to him on one occasion, "Nothing is more naive than a first love." As he unfolded before Marie's eyes this life which seemed to her immense, the countess was overcome with admiration.

She had thought Nathan grand, she now considered him sublime.