Yesterday, I was sitting up late in the studio, after having written this, when I heard Olivier call me. In a moment I was by his side. “I should have come myself, only I was too weak,” he said. “I tried to get up, but when I stand, my head turns round and I was afraid of falling. No, no, I’m not feeling worse; on the contrary. But I had to speak to you. “You must promise me something.... Never to try and find out why I wanted to kill myself the other night. I don’t think I know myself. I can’t remember. Even if I tried to tell you, upon my honour, I shouldn’t be able to.... But you mustn’t think that it’s because of anything mysterious in my life, anything you don’t know about.” Then, in a whisper: “And don’t imagine either that it was because I was ashamed....” Although we were in the dark, he hid his face in my shoulder. “Or if I am ashamed, it is of the dinner the other evening; of being drunk, of losing my temper, of crying; and of this summer ... and of having waited for you so badly.” Then he protested that none of all that was part of him any more; that it was all that that he had wanted to kill--that he had killed--that he had wiped out of his life. I felt, in his very agitation, how weak he still was, and rocked him in my arms, like a child, without saying anything. He was in need of rest; his silence made me hope he was asleep; but at last I heard him murmur: “When I am with you, I am too happy to sleep.” He did not let me leave him till morning. XII EDOUARD AND THEN STROUVILHOU VISIT PASSAVANT BERNARD arrived early that morning. Olivier was still asleep. As on the preceding days, Bernard settled himself down at his friend’s bedside with a book, which allowed Edouard to go off guard, in order to call on the Comte de Passavant, as he had promised. At such an early hour he was sure to be in. The sun was shining; a keen air was scouring the trees of their last leaves; everything seemed limpid, bathed in azure. Edouard had not been out for three days. His heart was dilated by an immense joy; and even his whole being, like an opened, empty wrapping, seemed floating on a shoreless sea, a divine ocean of loving-kindness. Love and fine weather have this power of boundlessly enlarging our contours.