One evening, as twilight came on, filling the chamber with a transparent gloom, I was walking slowly about, still going from the door to the window. In the growing obscurity, I saw Laurence's pale face, standing out from amid her dishevelled black hair; her sombre eyes had a vague brightness, and she looked at me thus, steadily, beautiful in her sufferings. I stopped in my weary walk and contemplated her. I knew not what had taken place within me; my flesh was shaken, my heart was open and I trembled like a leaf in every limb. All of a quiver, I ran to Laurence and clasped her in my arms. I loved her. I loved Laurence with all the strength of my abandonment and poverty. I was suffering from hunger and cold, I was clad in a rag of wool, I felt myself forsaken by everybody, and yet I had a sweetheart to fold to my bosom, to love with the love of desperation! In the depths of infamy, I had found the sweetheart who was waiting for me. Now, in the gulf, far removed from the light, we were alone to embrace, to clasp each other, like children who are afraid and who reassure themselves by hiding their heads on each other's shoulders. What silence was around us, and what gloom! How sweet it is to love in solitude, amid those deserts of despair whither all sounds of life have ceased to penetrate! I plunged to the depths of this supreme felicity; I loved Laurence with the caressing delight with which the dying man must love the existence which is escaping from him. I passed a week in a sort of dolorous ecstasy. I was tempted to stop up the window, that we might live in the midst of darkness for the balance of our lives; I wished to shut out the entire world and all it contained; I wished that the garret were very much smaller, so small, in fact, that no intruder could ever get into it to remind us that we were mortal like the rest of mankind and womankind. I did not think myself sufficiently miserable; I wanted more wretchedness, an excess of affliction of the most biting and terrible description; I desired the advent of some frightful misfortune that should strip me of all that want had left, that should tear from me every remaining comfort and leave Laurence and myself to live without having to thank this earth for anything whatever! I sighed for perfect independence and complete isolation. Then, my days would sweep by, each in its turn plunging me deeper into my love and my poverty. I was enraptured with cold and hunger, with the dirty mansarde, with the stains upon the walls and the furniture. I was enraptured with the blue silk dress, that lamentable assemblage of soiled tatters. My heart almost burst with pity when I saw Laurence standing before me, with this rag upon her back; I asked myself with the utmost anxiety by what kiss, by what superhuman kindness, I could clearly and unmistakably prove to her that I adored her in her poverty. As for me, I was happy in possessing only my coverlet: I would be colder, I would suffer more.