The _No_ was pronounced angrily and with scorn; it was, and must have been, a blow to her to whom it was addressed. He looked at her a long time, a look full of hatred, remorse, and disgust. It seemed as if he were passing in review all his companion’s ugliness, and as if until that moment he had never seen it so clearly: those wrinkles, that gray hair, that hump, the deformed neck, those arms which looked like hams in sacks, and then those rings and jewels which seemed to jeer at the white, flabby flesh with their brightness. The deformity, the grotesque violation of good taste, suddenly struck that handsome and robust man, for he had sold youth and manhood to an unfortunate woman who had believed it possible to still love and be loved. The two had plunged into the waves of the sea a little before; they had drunk of the sun’s rays too, but neither sea nor sun had been able to give happiness to these unfortunate creatures who had bartered carnal pleasures for gold, who had changed sacred love to a vile prostitution of flesh and banknotes. She had already passed the meridian of her second youth; he was still young. She was undressing. He was already in bed, and followed the progressive unclothing of that body with an anxious curiosity, that body once so active, so handsome and fascinating, now all submerged in the high waters of an invading corpulence. He wished to hide his head under the counterpane, and did so, but a morbid curiosity made him put out his head again directly, and he looked. She had read in her glass only too well the ruin of her form, and had always sought to undress alone; but this time she was obliged to do it before his eyes. She ingeniously hid the regions which had most suffered wreck, and with a remnant of coquetry kept uncovered her shoulders, the _ultimum moriens_ in the woman’s body; but diffident of herself, and fearful of those looks which seemed to pierce her through, her last garment fell from her hands to her feet, and the disasters of the wreck suddenly appeared, standing out cruelly, without pity for her or for him. She uttered a cry and stooped down to cover herself.... He, egotistical, pitiless, forgot all the delights that this body once so fragrant of youth and beauty had given him, and exclaimed, throwing the words in her face: “At a certain age I think a little more modesty is demanded.” From that moment, from that evening, the two were enemies, two galley slaves bound by the same chain. ⁂