Yesterday, when night came on, Marie's chamber was filled with gloom and silence. A candle, half hidden behind a vase on the mantelpiece, lighted a corner of the ceiling; the walls and the floor were in darkness; the bed was white amid the transparent shadows. Marie, paler, more broken, had closed her eyes. I knew that she could not last through the night. Pâquerette was asleep in her arm-chair, her hands crossed in her lap, smiling in a dream at some imaginary gluttony; her chin resting on her corsage, she was snoring softly, and the sound of her breath mingled with the weakened rattle in Marie's throat. I felt myself suffocating between this dying young girl and this old woman gorged with food. I hastened to the window. I opened it. The weather was clear. I leaned my elbows upon the sill, and gazed at the square patch of yellow light on the wall opposite. The stains came and went with rapidity, fading away to re-appear of greater dimensions than before. Never had the shadows been so nimble, so ironical; they seemed to be indulging with delight in a jeering dance, in an inexplicable confusion of shapes, wishing to entirely overthrow my reason. It was an indescribable pell-mell, a mass of heads, necks and shoulders, which rolled upon itself as if beaten and flattened by the strokes of a flail. Then, suddenly, at the very instant when I was smiling bitterly, no longer seeking to understand, supreme quietness settled down upon the sombre and agile shadows; the stains gave a final leap, two profiles were thrown upon the wall, enormous, full of energy, standing out with sharpness and vigor. It seemed as if, weary of tormenting me, the shadows had at last decided to reveal themselves; they were there, black, powerful, full of superb truth and insolence. I recognized Laurence and Jacques, out of all proportion, disdainful. The two profiles approached each other slowly and united with a kiss. I had not ceased to smile. I felt in myself a sort of tearing sensation, followed by a sudden feeling of satisfaction. My heart, with an enormous pulsation, had driven out all the love which was stifling it, and that love had gone out through my veins, giving me a final burn. I felt that sensation of anguish which the patient experiences beneath the hands of the surgeon: I suffered in order that I might cease to suffer. At last, the shadows had spoken, they had given me a certainty. I had the truth written there, before me, upon the wall; I knew that which I had sought to guess for so many long days; I stared fixedly at those two black heads, which were kissing in the square patch of yellow light.