Madame Chantal and her daughters rushed forward, and while they were
looking for towels, water and vinegar, I grabbed my hat and ran away.
I walked away with rapid strides, my heart heavy, my mind full of
remorse and regret. And yet sometimes I felt pleased; I felt as though
I had done a praiseworthy and necessary act. I was asking myself: “Did I
do wrong or right?” They had that shut up in their hearts, just as some
people carry a bullet in a closed wound. Will they not be happier now?
It was too late for their torture to begin over again and early enough
for them to remember it with tenderness.
And perhaps some evening next spring, moved by a beam of moonlight
falling through the branches on the grass at their feet, they will
join and press their hands in memory of all this cruel and suppressed
suffering; and, perhaps, also this short embrace may infuse in their
veins a little of this thrill which they would not have known without
it, and will give to those two dead souls, brought to life in a second,
the rapid and divine sensation of this intoxication, of this madness
which gives to lovers more happiness in an instant than other men can
gather during a whole lifetime!