In fact, nothing amuses me here. And the worst of it is that nothing bores me, either. Is it the air of this dirty country, the silence of the fields, the heavy, coarse food that I eat? A feeling of torpor is taking possession of me,--a feeling, moreover, which is not without charm. At any rate, it dulls my sensibility, deadens my dreams, and helps me to endure Madame's insolence and scolding. Thanks to it also, I feel a certain content in chattering, at night, for hours, with Marianne and Joseph,--this strange Joseph who does not go out any more, and seems to find pleasure in remaining with us. The idea that Joseph perhaps is in love with me,--well, that flatters me. Yes, indeed, I have got to that point. And then I read, and read,--novels, novels, and more novels. I have reread Paul Bourget. His books do not excite my enthusiasm as they used to. In fact, they tire me, and I consider them false and superficial. They are conceived in that state of soul which I know well from having experienced it when, dazzled and fascinated, I came in contact with wealth and luxury. I am all over it to-day, and these things no longer astonish me. They still astonish Paul Bourget. Oh! I would not be so silly now as to go to him for psychological explanations, for I know better than he what there is behind a parlor portière and under a lace dress. A thing to which I cannot get accustomed is the receiving of no letters from Paris. Every morning, when the carrier comes, I feel a sort of laceration in my heart at realizing that I am so abandoned by everybody; and it is in this way that I can best measure the extent of my solitude. In vain have I written to my old comrades, and especially to Monsieur Jean, urgent and disconsolate letters; in vain have I implored them to pay some attention to me, to take me out of my hell, to find me a place in Paris, however humble it may be. Not one of them answers me. I would never have believed in so much indifference, in so much ingratitude. And this forces me to cling more tightly to what I have left,--my memories and the past. Memories in which, in spite of everything, joy dominates suffering; a past which renews my hope that all is not over with me, and that it is not true that an accidental fall means irreparable ruin. That is why, alone in my room, while, on the other side of my partition, Marianne's snoring represents to me the distressing present, I try to drown this ridiculous sound in the sound of my old-time joys, and I passionately scrutinize this past, in order to reconstruct from its scattered bits the illusion of a future.