When Annette returned to her apartment again, with lowered head, heavy with thought, she went to bed without speaking. She tried to make her mind a blank, but she could not sleep. She had to struggle to escape from a certain mental picture, for the moment she became drowsy the picture appeared at the door of her imagination. To forget it she tried to fix her mind on her everyday affairs: they did not interest her. Then she appealed against the threatening invasion to an ally whom she usually feared to invoke, because by doing so she ran the ride of stirring up too many past troubles: Julien and the world of thoughts, more fictitious than real, which her regrets and dreams had grouped about the beloved name. They returned for a moment and fell back again, frozen. She persisted in trying to grasp them by force. She held in her arms only withered sheaves. A hot sun had dried up their sap. In her desire to revive them Annette, with her feverish hands, only burned them up. She was agitated, turning and turning her pillow. But she had to sleep for the sake of to-morrow's work. She took a sleeping-powder and fell into oblivion. But when she awoke after three or four hours, her anxiety was still there. It seemed to her that even during her sleep it had not left her. During the next day and the days that followed, her anxiety persisted. She came and went, gave her lessons, talked, laughed as usual. The well-equipped machine went on of itself. But her soul was troubled. One grey day, as she was crossing Paris, everything suddenly became bright. On the other side of the street Philippe Villard was passing. She went home filled with joy.