man who really loved her, kill himself, and there were two especially who
made obstinate love to her, although they did not at all resemble one
another.

One of them, Paul Péronel, was a tall man of the world, gallant and
enterprising, a man who was accustomed to successful love affairs, and
who knew how to wait, and when to seize his opportunity.

The other, Monsieur d'Avancelle, quivered when he came near her, scarcely
ventured to express his love, but followed her like a shadow, and gave
utterance to his hopeless desire by distracted looks, and the assiduity
of his attentions to her, and she made him a kind of slave who followed
her steps, and whom she treated as if he had been her servant.

She would have been much amused if anybody had told her that she would
love him, and yet she did love him, after a singular fashion. As she saw
him continually, she had grown accustomed to his voice, to his gestures,
and to his manner, as one grows accustomed to those with whom one meets
continually. Often his face haunted her in her dreams, and she saw him
as he really was; gentle, delicate in all his actions, humble, but
passionately in love, and she awoke full of those dreams, fancying that
she still heard him, and felt him near her, until one night (most likely
she was feverish), she saw herself alone with him in a small wood, where
they were both of them sitting on the grass. He was saying charming
things to her, while he pressed and kissed her hands.

She could feel the warmth of his skin and of his breath, and she was
stroking his hair, in a very natural manner.

We are quite different in our dreams to what we are in real life. She