He started, greatly troubled when he saw her tears. Something akin to her
own feelings came upon him. He was terribly distressed, angry with
himself. "Do not weep, my darling!" he exclaimed as he pressed her to
him: "it was stupid, brutal, and wrong of me to speak to you in that way.
Don't distress yourself, I beg you; we'll think it all over and talk
about it some other time."

She ceased to weep, but she continued silent, clinging to him, with her
head resting on his shoulder. And Mathieu, by the side of that loving,
trustful woman, all health and rectitude and purity, felt more and more
confused, more and more ashamed of himself, ashamed of having given heed
to the base, sordid, calculating principles which others made the basis
of their lives. He thought with loathing of the sudden frenzy which had
possessed him during the evening in Paris. Some poison must have been
instilled into his veins; he could not recognize himself. But honor and
rectitude, clear-sightedness and trustfulness in life were fast
returning. Through the window, which had remained open, all the sounds of
the lovely spring night poured into the room. It was spring, the season
of love, and beneath the palpitating stars in the broad heavens, from
fields and forests and waters came the murmur of germinating life. And
never had Mathieu more fully realized that, whatever loss may result,
whatever difficulty may arise, whatever fate may be in store, all the
creative powers of the world, whether of the animal order, whether of the
order of the plants, for ever and ever wage life's great incessant battle
against death. Man alone, dissolute and diseased among all the other
denizens of the world, all the healthful forces of nature, seeks death
for death's sake, the annihilation of his species. Then Mathieu again
caught his wife in a close embrace, printing on her lips a long, ardent
kiss.