It was strange that Thérèse only remembered the days that followed the departure of Anne and of the La Traves as of a period of torpor. At Argelouse, where it had been agreed that she should find the best means of working on Azévédo and making him give the girl up, she thought of nothing but rest and sleep. Bernard had agreed not to live in his own house, but in Thérèse’s, which was much more comfortable and where Aunt Clara spared them all the worries of housekeeping. What did other people matter to Thérèse? Let them arrange their own affairs. She refused to emerge from her stupor until the child was born. Bernard annoyed her every morning by reminding her of her promise to see Jean Azévédo. But Thérèse snubbed him: she began to be less able to endure his company. It may be that her pregnancy, as Bernard believed, had something to do with her ill-humour. He himself was just undergoing the first attacks of an obsession so common in the men of his race, though it rarely shows itself before the thirtieth year: the fear of death, that seemed at first so astonishing in a young man of his solid physique. But what could one say when he protested: “You don’t know what I feel like.” Men like him, mighty eaters, sprung from a lazy and overfed race, have only the appearance of strength. A pine tree planted in a manured field shoots up quickly: but very soon the heart of the tree grows rotten, and it must be cut down in the height of its strength. “It’s nerves”: people would say to Bernard: but he himself felt the flaw in the metal. Besides, though it was almost inconceivable, he hardly ate, he was no longer hungry. “Why don’t you see a doctor?” He shrugged his shoulders with affected indifference: as a matter of fact, uncertainty seemed to him less terrible than a possible verdict of death. In the night Thérèse was sometimes awakened with a start by his gasps for breath: Bernard’s hand sought hers and he laid it against his left chest so that she could feel the intermittent beating of his heart. She lit the candle, got up, and poured some valerian into a glass of water. How lucky it was, she thought, that this mixture was harmless! Why wasn’t it mortal? Nothing really soothes, and brings sleep, unless it does so for all eternity. Why was this querulous creature so frightened of what would bring him relief once and for all? He went to sleep before she did. How could she lie and wait for sleep beside this great carcass whose snorings sometimes turned to choking agony? Thank God, he no longer came near her,--he thought love-making the most dangerous of all activities for his heart. The cocks of dawn brought the farms to life. The Angelus of Saint Clair tinkled in the east wind; Thérèse’s eyes at last closed. Then the man’s body began to stir once more: he dressed himself quickly, like a peasant (he scarcely put his head into cold water). He crept like a dog down to the kitchen, sniffing after the scraps in the larder: