"I cannot be satisfied with that," cries the niece, "I am choking; I
must know something, and if your science cannot satisfy my necessity,
I am going there where they will not only tranquillize me, not only
explain everything to me, but also will make me happy--I am going to
church."

And she went. The roads of master and pupil diverge more and more.
The pupil comes to the conclusion that the science which is only a
slipknot on the human neck is positively bad and that it would be a
great merit before God to burn those old papers in which the doctor
writes his observations. And the drama becomes stronger, because
notwithstanding the doctor being sixty years old, and Clotilde is only
twenty years old, these two people are in love, not only as relations
are in love, but as a man and woman love each other. This love adds
more bitterness to the fight and prompts the catastrophe.

On a certain night the doctor detected the niece in a criminal deed.
She opened his desk, took out his papers, and she was ready to
burn them up! They began to fight! Beautiful picture! Both are in
nightgowns--they pull each other's hair, they scratch each other. He
is stronger than she; although he has bitten her, she feels a certain
pleasure in that experiment on her maiden skin of the strength of a
man. In that is the whole of Zola. But let us listen, because the
decisive moment approaches. The doctor himself, after having rested a
while, announces it solemnly. The reader shivers. Will the doctor by
the strength of his genius tear the sky and show to her emptiness
beyond the stars? Or will he by the strength of his eloquence ruin her
church, her creed, her ecstasies, her hopes?

In the quietness the doctor's low voice is heard: