Sylvie had disappeared from the horizon. When the first months of resentment were past, she had a certain feeling of remorse as she thought of the difficulties against which her sister was struggling. She was waiting for Annette to come and ask her for help: she would not have refused it, but she was not going to offer it. But rather than ask for it Annette would have allowed herself to be cut to pieces. The two sisters were at swords' points. They had seen each other in the street and avoided each other. But once when Annette had met little Odette with one of the workers, she had not resisted an affectionate impulse; she had taken the child in her arms and devoured her with kisses. On her side, Sylvie, seeing Marc passing one day on his way home from school--he appeared not to see her--stopped him and said, "Well, don't you recognize me any more?" One can imagine the high and mighty manner this little animal assumed as he said, "Good afternoon, aunt." All by himself he had made his little reflexions, and, just or unjust, he had thought it best to identify himself with his mother's cause. "My country, right or wrong." Sylvie was completely taken aback. She asked, "Well, are things going as they should?" He replied coldly, "Everything is going very well." She watched him as he walked stiffly off, blushing from the effort he had imposed on himself. He was neat and nicely dressed. . . . The mean little thing! "Everything is going very well." She could have boxed his ears. That Annette could manage her own affairs without her added to Sylvie's indignation. But she lost no opportunity to hear about her, and she did not give up the idea of lording it over her some day. If she could not do so actually, she could at least do so in thought. She was not unaware of the austere life which her sister led; and she did not understand why Annette condemned herself to it. She knew her well enough to be aware that a woman of her type was not made for this moral restraint, this joyless life. How could she force her nature in this way? What obliged her to live like a widow? In the absence of a husband she had no lack of friends who would be happy to lighten her troubles. If she had agreed to this, Sylvie would perhaps have respected her sister less, but she would have felt closer to her. She was not the only one who did not understand Annette. Annette understood hardly any better herself the reasons for her monastic life, the fierce dread that led her to draw back, not merely from the possibility, but from the mere idea of one of those natural pleasures that no religious or social law could have prevented her from enjoying. (She did not believe in the morality of the Church, and was she not mistress of herself?) "What am I afraid of?" "Of myself."