He returned home, uneasy with himself. When he had gone to bed he felt that sleep would never come, for a fever ran through his veins, and the spirit of reverie was fermenting in his heart. Fearing that enervating insomnia induced by the soul’s agitation, he thought he would try a book. How many times the briefest reading had served him as a narcotic! He got up and stepped into the library to choose a profitable and soporific book, but his mind, aroused in spite of itself, eager for any emotion whatever, sought on the shelves an author’s name that would respond to his state of exaltation and expectancy. Balzac, whom he adored, said nothing to him; he disdained Hugo, scorned Lamartine who invariably left him moved, and pounced upon Musset, the poet of youth. He took a volume and carried it to bed, to read a few pages at random.

When he returned to bed he began to drink, with a drunkard’s thirst, those flowing verses of an inspired poet who, like a bird, sang the dawn of existence, and with breath only for the morning, was silent at the glaring light of day—verses of a poet who was, above all, a man intoxicated with life, breathing rapture in glowing and simple ecstasies of love, the echo of all young hearts bewildered with desire.

They walked rapidly through the crowd that at five o’clock follows the summer evenings. Men turned around to look at Annette and whispered indistinct words of admiration as they passed. It was the first time since her mourning, since black was adding that brilliancy to her daughter’s beauty, that the countess had gone out with her in Paris, and the sensation of that street success, that roused attention, those whispered compliments, that little eddy of flattering emotion which the passing of a pretty woman leaves in a crowd of men, oppressed her heart little by little with the same painful shrinking she had experienced the other evening in her drawing room, when the young girl was being compared to her own portrait. In spite of herself she was watching for those glances of which Annette was the attraction; she felt them coming from afar, glance off her face without stopping, suddenly arrested by the fair face at her side. She guessed, she saw in the eyes the rapid and silent homage to this blooming youth, to the attractive charm of that freshness, and she thought, “I looked as well as she, if not better.” Suddenly the thought of Olivier shot through her brain, and she was seized, as she had been at Roncières, with an irresistible desire to run away.

A stranger! He himself! Olivier! He spoke to her as formerly, with the same words, the same voice, the same tones. And yet there was something new between them now, something inexplicable, intangible, invincible, almost nothing, that “almost nothing” which causes a sail to drift away when the wind changes.

He was actually drifting away, drifting away from her a little more every day with all the glances he bestowed on Annette. He himself made no effort to see clearly into his heart. He felt quite plainly that fermentation of love, that irresistible attraction, but he refused to understand; he trusted to events, to the unforeseen hazards of life.

These thoughts haunted her, spoiled everything she might have relished, turned into grief everything that would have given her joy, left her no pleasure, no contentment, no gaiety intact. She was forever trembling with an exasperated need to shake off the burden of misery that crushed her, for without this distressing importunity she would yet have been happy, alert, and healthy. She felt that her soul was spirited and fresh, her heart ever young, the ardor of a being that is beginning to live, an insatiable appetite for happiness, more ravenous even than heretofore, and a devouring desire to love.

And lo! All good things, all sweet, delicious, poetic things that embellish life and render it enjoyable, were withdrawing from her because she was growing old. It was over. Yet she still found within herself the sensibility of a young girl and the passionate impulse of a young woman. Nothing had grown old but her body, her miserable skin, that bag of bones, faded little by little, moth-eaten like the slip-cover of a piece of furniture. The obsession with this decay had fastened itself upon her and become the curse of a physical suffering.

Time was, like everyone else, when she had some notion of the passing years and of the changes they bring. Like everyone else she had said, she had told herself, every winter, every spring, and every summer, “I’ve changed so much since last year.” But ever beautiful, with a somewhat varying beauty, she paid no attention to it. Today, suddenly, she did pay attention to it. Today, all at once, instead of once more peaceably realizing the seasons’ slow changes, she had just discovered and understood the minutes’ formidable flight. She had had a sudden revelation of that vanishing of the hour, of that imperceptible race, maddening when one thinks of it, of that infinite procession of little hurried seconds which nibble at the body and the life of man.

Every morning now, as soon as she had risen, she felt impelled by a powerful desire to pray to God and obtain from Him a little relief and consolation.

Then she knelt before a tall oak crucifix, Olivier’s gift, a rare gift discovered by him, and with closed lips, imploring with the voice of the soul, the voice with which we speak to ourselves, she offered up a sorrowful supplication to the divine martyr. Distracted by the want of being heard and succored, simple in her distress like all the faithful on their knees, she could not doubt that He was listening to her, that He was attentive to her request and perhaps touched by her sorrow. She didn’t ask for Him to do for her what He never did for anyone—to leave her charm, her freshness, and her grace until her death; she only asked for a little respite and repose. Of course, she must grow old, as she must die. But why so soon? Some women remain beautiful to such an advanced age. Could He not grant that she be one of those? How good He would be, He who had also suffered so much, if He only gave her for two or three years more the remnant of charm she needed in order to please.

Today it was her very soul that was escaping, intangible. Ah, that gnawing irritation he had just recognized, how often had he felt it through all the little inexpressible contusions by which a loving heart is continually bruised.

He recalled all the painful impressions of this petty jealousy falling upon him by little blows day by day. Each time she had noticed, admired, liked, desired something, he had been jealous of it; jealous of everything in an imperceptible and continuous fashion, of everything that absorbed the time, Annette’s glances, attention, gaiety, astonishment, affection—anything that took a little of her from him. He had been jealous of all she did without him, of all he did not know, of her outings, her readings, of all that seemed to afford her pleasure, jealous of an heroic officer wounded in Africa and who was the talk of Paris for about a week, jealous of the author of a highly praised novel, of a young poet she hadn’t seen but whose verses Musadieu recited; and finally jealous of all men praised before her, even in an indifferent sort of way, for when one loves a woman one cannot tolerate without anguish that she should even think of anyone else with an appearance of interest. One feels at heart the imperious need of being the only one in the world in her eyes. One wants her to see, to know, to appreciate no one else. As soon as she manifests a desire to turn around to look at or recognize anybody, one throws himself before her vision, and if unsuccessful in turning it aside or entirely absorbing it, one suffers to the bottom of one’s soul.

Like all older painters, Bertin was vexed by these newcomers, irritated by their ostracizing, and perplexed by their doctrines. He began reading the article with the rising anger that readily excites a nervous heart, then glancing farther along, perceived his own name, and those few words at the end of a sentence struck him like a blow of the fist full to the breast: “Olivier Bertin’s old-fashioned art. . . .”

He had always been sensitive to both criticism and praise, but far down in his consciousness, notwithstanding his legitimate vanity, his pain under criticism was greater than his pleasure under praise, a consequence of the uneasiness concerning himself which his hesitations had always fed. Formerly, however, in the days of his triumphs, the waving of incense was so frequent that it made him forget the pinpricks. Today, with the ceaseless appearance of new artists and new admirers, congratulations were rarer and disparagement emphatic. He felt he was enrolled in the battalions of old painters of talent whom the younger do not treat as masters; and since he was as intelligent as he was perspicacious, he now suffered as much from the slightest insinuations as from direct attacks.

Never had a wound to his artistic pride proved so painful. He remained gasping, and read the article over in order to understand its slightest shades. A few colleagues and himself were swept aside with outrageous unconcern; and he got up murmuring those words that remained on his lips: “Olivier Bertin’s old-fashioned art. . . .”

He tried to speak and could not, for now sobs were choking him. She listened to the stifling in his breast as he leaned against her. Then, seized again by the selfish anguish of love that had been gnawing at her so long, she said in the heartrending tone in which one realizes a horrible misfortune, “My God, how you love her!”

Once more he confessed. “Ah! Yes, I love her!”

She thought a few moments, and resumed, “You never loved me so?”

He did not deny it, for it was one of those hours where one speaks the whole truth, and murmured, “No, I was too young then!”

She was surprised. “Too young? Why?”

“Because life was too sweet. It is only at our age that one loves desperately.”

She asked, “Does what you feel when near her resemble what you used to feel when near me?”

“Yes and no—and yet it’s almost the same thing. I’ve loved you as much as anyone may love a woman. I love her like yourself, since she is yourself, but that love has become something irresistible, destructive, stronger than death. I belong to it as a burning building belongs to the flames.”