them.

It seemed to me, as if I were looking at a heap of ruins, or breathing
in the odor of an ambulance, in which dying men were groaning, and that
those unhappy people were assuaging my trouble somewhat, and taking
their share of it.

I used to read the advertisements in the Agony Columns in the
newspapers, where the same exalted phrases used to recur, where I read
the same despairing _adieux_, earnest requests for a meeting, echoes of
past affection, and vain vows; and all this relieved me, vaguely
appeased me, and made me think less about myself, that hateful,
incurable _I_ which I longed to destroy!

PART XX

As the heat was very oppressive, and there was not a breath of wind,
after dinner she wanted to go for a drive in the _Bois de Boulogne_ and
we drove in the victoria towards the bridge at Suresne.

It was getting late, and the dark drives looked like deserted
labyrinths, and cool retreats where one would have liked to have stopped
late, where the very rustle of the leaves seems to whisper amorous
temptations, and there was seduction in the softness of the air and in
the infinite music of the silence.

Occasionally, lights were to be seen among the trees, and the crescent
of the new moon shone like a half-opened gold bracelet in the serene
sky, and the green sward, the copses and the small lakes, which gave an
uncertain reflection of the surrounding objects, came into sight
suddenly, out of the shade, and the intoxicating smell of the hay and of
the flower beds rose from the earth as if from a sachet.

We did not speak, but the jolts of the carriage occasionally brought us
quite close together, and as if I were being attracted by some
irresistible force, I turned to Elaine and saw that her eyes were
filled with tears, and that she was very pale, and my whole body
trembled when I looked at her. Suddenly, as if she could not bear this
state of affairs any longer, she threw her arms round my neck, and with
her lips almost touching mine, she said:

"Why do you not love me any longer? Why do you make me so unhappy? What
have I done to you, Jacques?"

She was at my mercy, she was undergoing the influence of the charm of
one of those moonlight nights which unbrace women's nerves, make them
languid, and leave them without a will and without strength, and I
thought that she was going to tell me everything and to confess
everything to me, and I had to master myself, not to kiss her on her
sweet coaxing lip