mind. Occasionally
he thought of her as one thinks of a woman one has to marry later on, in
the indefinite future. He patiently awaited the time for his marriage,
forgetful of the bride, and dreaming of the new position he would then
enjoy. He would leave his office, he would paint for amusement, and
saunter about hither and thither. These hopes brought him night after
night, to the shop in the arcade, in spite of the vague discomfort he
experienced on entering the place.

One Sunday, with nothing to do and being bored, he went to see his
old school friend, the young painter he had lived with for a time. The
artist was working on a picture of a nude Bacchante sprawled on some
drapery. The model, lying with her head thrown back and her torso
twisted sometimes laughed and threw her bosom forward, stretching her
arms. As Laurent smoked his pipe and chatted with his friend, he kept
his eyes on the model. He took the woman home with him that evening and
kept her as his mistress for many months. The poor girl fell in love
with him. Every morning she went off and posed as a model all day. Then
she came back each evening. She didn't cost Laurent a penny, keeping
herself out of her own earnings. Laurent never bothered to find out
about her, where she went, what she did. She was a steadying influence
in his life, a useful and necessary thing. He never wondered if he loved
her and he never considered that he was being unfaithful to Therese. He
simply felt better and happier.

In the meanwhile the period of mourning that Therese had imposed on
herself, had come to an end, and the young woman put on light-coloured
gowns. One evening, Laurent found her looking younger and handsomer.
But he still felt uncomfortable in her presence. For some time past, she
seemed to him feverish, and full of strange capriciousness, laughing and
turning sad without reason. This unsettled demeanour alarmed him, for he
guessed, in part, what her struggles and troubles must be like.

He began to hesitate, having an atrocious dread of risking his
tranquillity. He was now living peacefully, in wise contentment, and he
feared to endanger the equilibrium of his life, by binding himself to
a nervous woman, whose passion had already driven him crazy. But he did
not reason these matters out, he felt by instinct all the anguish he
would be subjected to, if he made Therese his wife.

The first shock he received, and one that roused him in his
sluggishness, was