While Jacques was talking to me in his slow voice, I could not take my eyes from the young girl's touching countenance, so youthful and so faded. There were upon her frank forehead profound lassitude and languor; the blood no longer flowed beneath her skin; the shivers of life no longer made her slumbering flesh tremble. Have you ever seen, in her cradle, a little girl whom fever has rendered whiter and more innocent than usual? She sleeps with her eyes wide open; she has the gentle and peaceful visage of an angel; she suffers and she seems to smile. The strange little girl whom I had before me, that woman who had remained a child, resembled her sister in the cradle. Only, in her case, it was more pitiful to see upon a forehead of fifteen so much purity and so much pallor, all the innocent graces of a young girl and all the shameful fatigues of a woman. She had thrown back her arms and was supporting her languishing head upon her hands. I was ignorant of her history; I knew not who she was or what she was doing in this chamber. But, from her entire being, I saw the innocence of her heart and the disgrace of her life; I recognized the youthfulness of her glances and the premature age of her blood; I said to myself that she was dying of decrepitude at fifteen, with a spotless soul. Emaciated and weakened, she would expire like a fallen creature, but with the smile of an angel upon her lips. I sat for two full hours between Jacques and Marie, contemplating these two beings, studying their countenances. I could not conjecture what had brought such a man and such a woman together. Then, I thought of Laurence, and comprehended that unions existed which could not be avoided. Jacques seems to me satisfied with the existence he leads. He toils, he regulates his pleasures and his studies; he lives the life of a student without impatience, even with a certain tranquil satisfaction. I noticed that he showed some pride in receiving me in such a beautiful chamber; he does not see all the ignoble ugliness of the false and wretched luxury which surrounds him. Besides, he is neither vain nor a coxcomb; he is a great deal too practical to have such defects. He spoke to me only of his hopes, of his future position; he is in haste to be no longer young and to live as becomes a grave man. Meanwhile, in order to be like the rest of mankind, he consents to inhabit a chamber at fifty francs per month rent, he wishes to smoke, to drink a little, and even to have a sweetheart. But he considers all this simply as a custom which he cannot refuse; he designs, after having passed his final examination, to disembarrass himself of his cigar, of Marie and of his glass as pieces of furniture thenceforward useless. He has calculated, nearly to the minute, the time when he will have a right to the respect of worthy people.