"To-morrow I shall talk to Roger seriously. He must know what I am like. We must see each other honestly if we are going to live together. . . ." But when the next day came, she was so glad to see Roger again, to let herself be enveloped in his warm affection, to breathe with him the intoxicating sweetness of the spring countryside, to dream of happiness--(impossible perhaps, but who knows, who knows? . . . perhaps it is close . . . one need only stretch out a hand . . .)--that she put off explanations until the next day. . . . And then, to the next. . . . And then, to the day after. . . . And each night she was seized anew by piercing pangs, by heart burnings. . . . "I must. . . . I must speak. . . . It has to be done for Rogers sake. Every day he is more enchained, and enchains me more. I have no right to keep silent. It is deceiving him. . . ." Heavens, heavens! How weak she was! . . . Yet she was not so, in ordinary life. But the breath of love is like those hot winds whose burning languor breaks your joints and makes your heart faint. An extreme lassitude of obscure pleasure. A fear of stirring. A fear of thinking. . . . The soul, cowering in its dream, fears awakening. Annette knew perfectly well that at her first gesture the dream would be shattered. . . . But even if we do not move, time moves for us; and the flight of days is sufficient to carry away the illusion that we would preserve. In vain one watches oneself; two persons cannot live together from morn till evening without, at the end of a short time, showing themselves as they really are. The Brissot family revealed its true colors. The smile was façade. Annette had become part of the household. She saw busy, morose, middle-class people, who administered their wealth with a bitter pleasure. There was no question here of socialism. Of immortal principles, they invoked only the Declaration of the Landlord's Rights. It was not good to attack this. Their watchman was ceaselessly occupied in setting up barriers against trespassing. They personally exercised a strict surveillance that was to them a kind of sorry delectation. They seemed to be carrying on a guerrilla warfare with the servants, their farmers, the grape gatherers, and with all their neighbors. The spirit of sharp practice, that was native to the family and to the province, flourished here. When father Brissot succeeded in trapping someone he had his eye out for, he laughed heartily. But he did not laugh last: his adversary was made of the same Burgundian clay, not to be caught napping; the next day he retaliated by a trick of his own. And then it began all over again. . . .