l-ordered machine, giving back in power what was consumed in fuel,
maintaining itself in vigor and in beauty by the simultaneous and
logical play of all its organs. He believed physical and intellectual
labor, feeling and reasoning should be in equal proportions, and
never excessive, for excess meant disturbance of the equilibrium and,
consequently, disease. Yes, yes, to begin life over again and to know
how to live it, to dig the earth, to study man, to love woman, to attain
to human perfection, the future city of universal happiness, through the
harmonious working of the entire being, what a beautiful legacy for
a philosophical physician to leave behind him would this be! And this
dream of the future, this theory, confusedly perceived, filled him with
bitterness at the thought that now his life was a force wasted and lost.

At the very bottom of his grief Pascal had the dominating feeling that
for him life was ended. Regret for Clotilde, sorrow at having her no
longer beside him, the certainty that he would never see her again,
filled him with overwhelming grief. Work had lost its power, and he
would sometimes let his head drop on the page he was writing, and weep
for hours together, unable to summon courage to take up the pen again.
His passion for work, his days of voluntary fatigue, led to terrible
nights, nights of feverish sleeplessness, in which he would stuff the
bedclothes into his mouth to keep from crying out Clotilde's name. She
was everywhere in this mournful house in which he secluded himself.
He saw her again, walking through the rooms, sitting on the chairs,
standing behind the doors. Downstairs, in the dining-room, he could not
sit at table, without seeing her opposite him. In the workroom upstairs
she was still his constant companion, for she, too, had lived so long
secluded in it that her image seemed reflected from everything; he felt
her constantly beside him, he could fancy he saw her standing before her
desk, straight and slender--her delicate face bent over a pastel. And if
he did not leave the house to escape from the dear and torturing memory
it was because he had the certainty that he should find her everywhere
in the garden, too: dreaming on the terrace; walking with slow steps
through the alleys in the pine grove; sitting under the shade of the
plane trees; lulled by the eternal song of the fountain; lying in the
threshing yard at twilight, her gaze fixed on space, waiting for
the stars to c