[...] What is it she’s so scared of losing in choosing one man over the other? Were she to return to Guillaume — dear me, there’s probably no chance of that now, too much harm has been done — she would lose that promise of a new life which had so attracted her that she had rushed straight in, her dress flapping about her legs and her hair streaming in the wind. But isn’t it an illusion to believe in a new life? Were she to choose Thomas, she would lose a previous life so warm and so tender that it was like being contained in a womb. And yet she had been expelled from that womb, it seems. Can you return to your origins? Not when you’ve been cast out like Eve, weeping, distraught, covering your face in shame in all those frescoes and paintings.

What now, then? Alone in the big, wide world like a tiny shoot? Heavens, it certainly looks that way, especially as the two men are motionless now, not moving at all, while they await her verdict. Neither of them exerts the slightest pressure any longer, neither of them shows himself, yet they must still be gazing down on her, since whenever she appeals to one of them for a bit of contact, just for a bit of contact, he immediately responds. Some of her more lighthearted friends suggest: a third man? They all burst out laughing, and Anna as well: a third man! Oh no! That’s quite enough of that lark! For pity’s sake, no more passion! [...]