I spent that night almost without sleep, only in the morning having a feverish doze during which I dreamed a strange dream. I seemed to be sitting at table during a big dinner. I had facing me Camille dressed in red with her golden hair upon her bare shoulders. Near her was my unfortunate friend, Claude Larcher, whom I know is dead, and whom I knew was dead then at the time I seemed to see him alive. Although we were at table Claude was writing. It caused me infinite anguish to see him writing these lines, holding his pen in a way I knew only too well. It struck me that as he were ill such an effort would be fatal. I wanted to call out to him to stop, but I could not do so, as I was threatened with her finger by Camille, in whose eyes I discerned an absolute order not to say a word. I understood at the same time that the letter written like this by Claude was meant for me. It contained advice about Camille, and I knew it was of such pressing interest that waiting was a punishment which increased when the guests rose from the table and I saw Larcher go away with the letter without giving it to me. I set out to pursue him through an infinite maze of winding staircases. To descend them more quickly I jumped into space and rebounded as if wings had raised me till I found myself in a garden which I recognized as being that of Nohant, though I had never been there. I observed with astonishment the beautiful order of the beds, in which the flowers were planted so as to trace letters, and in astonishment I read the phrase which Jacques had used to me: “She had already begun.” At that moment a burst of laughter made me look round. I saw Camille with her hair still on her fine shoulders and very pale in her red dress. She took to Tournade a note which I knew to be the one written by Claude. The fat man was lying in bed, his face still redder than usual, and he smacked his lips together with the sensuality of a glutton who has an appetizing dish set before him. It was then, at the moment when Camille began to unfasten her dress to get into bed, that the grief became unbearable. I understood that she was about to give herself to him for the first time. I wished to run to her and again the same fearful immobility entirely paralysed me and I awakened bathed in perspiration.