They went out. They reached the boulevards. The crowds that were thronging them seemed entirely composed of rich people; each of them seemed sure of himself, indifferent to the others, but anxious. “Is that the image of happiness?” asked Bernard, who felt the tears rising in his heart. Then the angel took Bernard into the poor quarters of the town, whose wretchedness Bernard had never suspected. Evening was falling. They wandered for a long time among tall, sordid houses, inhabited by disease, prostitution, shame, crime and hunger. It was only then that Bernard took the angel’s hand, and the angel turned aside to weep. Bernard did not dine that evening; and when he went back to the pension he did not attempt to join Sarah, as he had done the other evenings, but went straight upstairs to the room he shared with Boris. Boris was already in bed but not asleep. He was re-reading, by the light of his candle, the letter he had received that very morning from Bronja. “I am afraid,” wrote his friend, “that I shall never see you again. I caught cold when we got back to Poland. I have a cough; and though the doctor hides it from me, I feel I cannot live much longer.” When he heard Bernard coming up, Boris hid the letter under his pillow, and blew the candle out hurriedly. Bernard came in in the dark. The angel was with him, but, although the night was not very dark, Boris saw only Bernard. “Are you asleep?” asked Bernard in a whisper. And as Boris did not answer, he concluded he was sleeping. “Then, now,” said Bernard to the angel, “we’ll have it out.” And all that night, until the breaking of the day, they wrestled. Boris dimly perceived that Bernard was struggling. He thought it was his way of praying and took care not to disturb him. And yet he would have liked to speak to him, for his unhappiness was very great. He got up and knelt down at the foot of his bed. He would have liked to pray, but he could only sob: “Oh, Bronja! You who can see angels, you who were to have opened my eyes, you are leaving me! Without you, Bronja, what will become of me? What will become of me?” Bernard and the angel were too busy to hear him. They wrestled together till daybreak. The angel departed without either of them having vanquished the other. When, a little later, Bernard himself left the room, he met Rachel in the passage. “I want to speak to you,” she said. Her voice was so sad that Bernard understood at once what it was she had to say to him. He answered nothing, bowed his head, and in his great pity for Rachel suddenly began to hate Sarah and to loathe the pleasure he took with her. XV BERNARD VISITS EDOUARD ABOUT ten o’clock, Bernard turned up at Edouard’s with a hand bag which was sufficient to contain the few clothes and books that he possessed. He had taken leave of Azaïs and of Madame Vedel, but had not attempted to see Sarah.