He let himself fall on the divan. He had walked all night. Not to suffer
too much, he had tried to find diversions. On the Bercy Quay he had
looked at the moon floating in the clouds. For an hour he had seen it
veil itself and reappear. Then he had counted the windows of houses with
minute care. The rain began to fall. He had gone to the market and had
drunk whiskey in a wine-room. A big girl who squinted had said to him,
"You don't look happy." He had fallen half asleep on the leather bench.
It had been a moment of oblivion. The images of that painful night
passed before his eyes. He said: "I recalled the night of the Arno. You
have spoiled for me all the joy and beauty in the world." He asked her to
leave him alone. In his lassitude he had a great pity for himself. He
would have liked to sleep--not to die; he held death in horror--but to
sleep and never to wake again. Yet, before him, as desirable as
formerly, despite the painful fixity of her dry eyes, and more mysterious
than ever, he saw her. His hatred was vivified by suffering.

She extended her arms to him. "Listen to me, Jacques." He motioned to her
that it was useless for her to speak. Yet he wished to listen to her,
and already he was listening with avidity. He detested and rejected in
advance what she would say, but nothing else in the world interested him.

She said:

"You may have believed I was betraying you, that I was not living for you
alone. But can you not understand anything? You do not see that if that
man were my lover it would not have been necessary for him to talk to me
at the play-house in that box; he would have a thousand other ways of
meeting me. Oh, no, my friend, I assure you that since the day when I
had the happiness to meet you, I have been yours entirely. Could I have