In the evening, the question of bread returns, terrible and pressing. We eat or we do not eat. Then, we retire, weary and sleepy. On the morrow, the same life begins again, but sharper and more biting every day. I have not been out of doors for a week past. One evening--we had not eaten the previous day--I took off my coat on the Place du Panthéon, and Laurence went to sell it. It was freezing. I went home on a run, sweating great beads from fear and suffering. Two days afterwards my pantaloons followed the coat. I no longer have clothes to wear. I wrap myself up in a coverlet, I cover myself as I can and take thus the most exercise possible to prevent my joints from stiffening. When any one comes to see me, I hurry to bed and pretend to be a trifle indisposed. Laurence appears to suffer less than I do. She feels no shock, she does not try to escape from the existence we lead. I cannot comprehend this woman. She tranquilly accepts my poverty. Is it devotion or necessity? As for me, brothers, as I have told you, I am comfortable, I am plunged in lethargy. I feel my being melting away; I abandon myself to that gentle prostration of dying men, who ask for pity in a weak and caressing tone. I have no desire whatever, except to eat more frequently. I would also be pitied, caressed and loved. I have need of a heart. * * * * * Oh! brothers, I suffer, I suffer. I dare not speak; I feel shame close my lips, and I can only weep, without taking from my breast the crushing weight which is upon it. Poverty is mild and infamy light. And now Heaven is punishing me, bowing me beneath a terrible hurricane, beneath an implacable wound. At last, brothers, you can give up all hope of me: I have no more steps to descend, for I am at the bottom of the ladder; I am about to abandon myself to the gulf--I am lost forever. Do not question me. I allow my cries to float to your ears, for grief is too bitter for me to succeed in stifling its groans. But I restrain the words upon my lips; I wish neither to frighten you nor to sadden you with the recital of the terrible history of my heart. Say to yourselves that Claude is dead, that you will never see him more, that all is, indeed, over. I prefer to suffer alone, even if I should die of my suffering, to troubling your holy tranquillity by tearing myself open before you, by showing you my bleeding wound. No, you will suffer from the revelation, but it is impossible for me to maintain silence. I will find some consolation in imparting to you all my thoughts and actions; I will be quieted when I know that you are sobbing with me. Brothers, I love Laurence! CHAPTER XVI REMINISCENCES Let me regret, let me remember, let me review all my youth in a single glance.