Stendhal considers Mme de Chasteller's hesitations and Mathilde de la Mole's inconsistencies with the same tender irony; so many detours, changes of mind, scruples, victories, and hidden defeats in order to reach simple and legitimate ends is for him the most delightful of comedies; there is drollery in these dramas because the actress is both judge and party, because she is her own dupe, and because she burdens herself with complicated paths where a decree would suffice for the Gordian knot to be cut; but they nonetheless show the most respectable concern that could torture a noble soul: she wants to remain worthy of her own esteem; she places her own approbation higher than that of others, and thus she realizes herself as an absolute.