That moon was dead, and the earth would die also. She was becoming chilled second by second; and the imperceptible consequence of these seconds, added together during millions of years, had already extinguished the fire of the volcanoes from which formerly flowed the burning and devastating lava on which the château now stood. In cooling this lava had raised a barrier to the course of the water which spread into a lake, and the water of this lake was being evaporated as the atmosphere diminished--these forty poor kilometers of respirable air which surround the planet. I closed my eyes, and I felt this mortal globe roll through the infinite space, unconscious of the little worlds that come and go upon it, as the immensity of space is unconscious of the suns, the moons and the earths. The planet will roll on when it will be only a ball without air and without water, from which man has disappeared, as well as animals and plants. Instead of bringing to me the serenity of contemplation, this vision threw me back upon myself and made me feel with terror the consciousness of my own person, the only reality that I could possess, and for how long? Scarcely a point and a moment! Then, in this irreparable flight of things, this point and this moment of our consciousness remains our only good, we must exalt it by increasing its intensity. I felt, with a frightful force, that this sovereign intensity of emotion Charlotte alone could give me if she were in this room, seated in this chair, uniting her condemned soul to my condemned soul, her fleeting youth to my fleeting youth, and as all the instruments of an orchestra harmonize to produce a single tone, all the separate forces of my being, the intellectual, the sentimental, the sensual united in a yearning for Charlotte. Alas! The vision of the universe heightened the frenzy of the personal life instead of calming it. I said to myself that without doubt I had been deceived in believing myself a purely abstract and intellectual being. During the months in which I had been entirely chaste had I not lived contrary to my nature? Under pretext of some family business to regulate I obtained of the marquis a vacation of eight days. I went to Clermont and sought for Marianne. I soon found her. She was no longer the simple working-woman. A country proprietor had settled her, dressed her in fine clothes, and coming to the city only one day in eight, left her a sort of liberty. This re-entrance into the world affected me as a renewal of initiation. I was desirous of knowing to what degree the memory of Charlotte gangrened my soul. Ah! how the image of Mlle. de Jussat presented itself at that moment with her Madonna-like profile and the delicacy of her whole being. It was impossible for me to return to these base idols. I passed the days which remained to me in walking with my mother, who seeing me so melancholy became uneasy and increased my sadness by her questions.