walked like a madman from his bed to his window, which he dared not open.
He had often formerly, leant his elbows there during the hours of
sleeplessness, and breathed with delight the keen freshness of the valley.
But now he dared no longer; warm vapours rose up to him and completed the
conflagration of his senses. Nature was re-awakening from the long slumber
of winter, and already setting to work, was accomplishing from every
quarter the mysterious work of love. And within and without he felt its
formidable power growing and enveloping him.

Nameless thoughts tumultuously invaded his sick brain and ruled there as
despots. They attached themselves to him like an implacable furious old
woman, who attaches herself the more closely to her young lover, the more
she feels he is going to escape her.

He saw again in continual hallucinations, sometimes the lascivious player
as she had appeared to him near her little white bed, sometimes the fresh
face of the religious school-girl who smiled to him from the height of the
gallery. At other times he saw them both together, and each of them called
him and said to him: Come, come.

Oh! why all these obstacles, these doors, these walls, these prejudices and
that formidable barrier which he dared not pass, duty.

It seemed to him that a burning lava was escaping from his heart, running
into his veins and devouring him. His limbs were heavy and bruised; his
head was on fire like his heart, and his thoughts were enveloped in mire.
Often with his eye fixed on space, he contemplated some phantom visible to
himself alone; then big tears rolled slowly on his cheeks and fell one by
one on his bare chest, and he felt that they relieved him.