He would be sure to
make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, and
he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the way she put
it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love a grievance,
because it gives them an opportunity to talk--with a good case and to
some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she had so often
seen Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, she thought she
knew her Jean Jacques after living with him for over thirteen years; but
hers was a very common mistake. It is not time which gives revelation, or
which turns a character inside out, and exposes a new and amazing, maybe
revolting side to it. She had never really seen Jean Jacques, and he had
never really seen himself, as he was, but only as circumstances made him
seem to be. What he had showed of his nature all these forty odd years
was only the ferment of a more or less shallow life, in spite of its many
interests: but here now at last was life, with the crust broken over a
deep well of experience and tragedy. She knew as little what he would do
in such a case as he himself knew beforehand. As the incident of the
flume just now showed, he knew little indeed, for he had done exactly the
opposite of what he meant to do. It was possible that Carmen would also
do exactly the opposite of what she meant to do in her own crisis.
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