m in order to give myself to him." But she could not
feel again the sentiments of early days, the movements of her mind when
she had yielded. She recalled small and insignificant circumstances: the
flowers on the wall-paper and the pictures in the room. She recalled the
words, a little ridiculous and almost touching, that he had said to her.
But it seemed to her that the adventure had occurred to another woman, to
a stranger whom she did not like and whom she hardly understood. And what
had happened only a moment ago seemed far distant now. The room, the
lilacs in the crystal vase, the little cup of Bohemian glass where she
found her pins--she saw all these things as if through a window that one
passes in the street. She was without bitterness, and even without
sadness. She had nothing to forgive, alas! This absence for a week was
not a betrayal, it was not a fault against her; it was nothing, yet it
was everything. It was the end. She knew it. She wished to cease. It was
the consent of all the forces of her being. She said to herself: "I have
no reason to love him less. Do I love him no more? Did I ever love him?"
She did not know and she did not care to know. Three years, during which
there had been months when they had seen each other every day--was all
this nothing? Life is not a great thing. And what one puts in it, how
little that is!

In fine, she had nothing of which to complain. But it was better to end
it all. All these reflections brought her back to that point. It was not
a resolution; resolutions may be changed. It was graver: it was a state
of the body and of the mind.

When she arrived at the square, in the centre of which is a fountain, and
on one side of which stands a church of rustic style, showing its bell in
an open belfry, she recalled the little bouquet of violets that he had
given to her one night on the bridge near Notre Dame. They had loved each
other that day--perhaps more than usual. Her heart softened at that
reminiscence. But the little bouquet remained alone, a poor little flower
skeleton, in her memory.

While she was thinking, passers-by, deceived by the simplicity of her
dress, followed her. One of them made propositions to her: a dinner and
the theatre. It amused her. She was not at all disturbed; this was not a
crisis. She thought: "How do other women manage such things? And I, who
promised myself not to spoil my life. What is life worth?"

Opposite the Greek lantern of the Musee d