Structure

The plot of Adolphe appears to be quite deliberately marked out with a number of caesurae which signpost an unmistakably decisive shift in the action, the close of one phase of activity and the beginning of another. These occur three times and coincide with the endings of chapters. (Though Constant's chapter-endings are seldom weak, three of them especially give the reader the sense of the curtain closing on an act or ‘movement’ that is now irrevocably completed.) At the close of Chapter III Adolphe, in a state of euphoria, thanks Nature for the enormous blessing she has bestowed on him in giving him physical possession of Ellénore: Adolphe's remembered exhilaration is emphasised by repetition, ‘pour la remercier du bienfait inespéré, du bienfait immense qu'elle avait daigné m'accorder’, ‘to thank her for the unhoped-for favour, the immense favour she had deigned to grant me’. (The following chapter, after a passage of reflection on happy lovers, ‘Charme de l'amour’, brings us swiftly to Adolphe's growing disillusionment.) The second phase of the story closes with the end of Chapter VI: Adolphe and Ellénore are travelling to Poland and memories of their shared experiences rekindle tender feelings in Adolphe, but although he occasionally speaks to Ellénore as though he still loves her, his emotions are likened, in a memorable image, to a few last pale leaves put out by an uprooted tree.