The dream in which Renaud saw Livette was explained to him several times by Monsieur le curé, but always to no purpose. How, indeed, could his remorse cease, when his passion still endured, and when he was constantly committing anew, in desire, the sin that caused all the misery? My friends, there is but one wise course to pursue: "Plant a tree, build a house, rear a child. Be patient--everything comes in due time. The thing that does not happen in a hundred years, may happen in six thousand. The future is still yours!" When Renaud, in the dreams of his unhealthy life, feels, as he sometimes does, that his love is stronger in him than his passion, it seems to him as if Livette were drawing him toward death, but truthful, kindly beings never inspire thoughts of self-destruction. Of one thing, at least, he is certain. He feels that voluntary death would not remove him from the circle of the accursed. He would, on the contrary, descend still lower in the spiral pit of mortals damned by love. They say that persons drowned in the Rhône, borne along without doubt by the irresistible current, which brings them all together at the mouth of the river, return, on certain evenings, to hold a carnival of despair on the surface of the water. Happy are they since they are, on those occasions, united. But they who are drowned in stagnant waters, and they who, to join them, die by their own hand, are never aught but solitary spectres. They seek each other all the time, but always unavailingly. They are the souls of the damned. They wander through the desert, calling to one another; but never even approach or see one another; and at night, in the deserts of Crau and Camargue, the traveller hears long-drawn, wailing cries, flying unavailingly hither and thither over the vast plains, forever and forever. Even the clouds call and answer one another in their aerial flight. NOTES [1] "Do not wear out your shoes on the hard roads; Rather take boat and so descend the Rhône. "Leave Lyon and Valence behind; Salute them with a nod as you pass beneath their bridges. "Avignon is the queen,--but pass her by as well; Not till you come to Arles will you find your love---- "The plain is fair and broad, O comrade,---- Take your love _en croupe_, and off you go!" [2] "On the bridge of Avignon every one must pay toll." [3] The name Vincent is pronounced very much like _vingt cent_, twenty hundred, or two thousand. [4] "May this work of mine, begun in God's name, be constantly blessed with the favor of Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit wisely guide my hand, my pen, and my understanding."