"One cannot get away from one's self. One cannot even confess anything. One is alone. And then everything passes, everything changes, everything takes flight, and as soon as everything takes flight one is alone. There are times when I see this better than at other times. And then I cannot help crying." She was getting sadder and sadder, but then she had a little access of pride, and I saw a smile gently stir her veil of melancholy. "I am more sensitive than other people. Things that other people would not notice awaken a distinct echo in me, and in such moments of lucidity, when I look at myself, I see that I am alone, all alone, all alone." Disturbed to see her growing distress, he tried to raise her spirits. "We cannot say that, we who have reshaped our destiny. You, who have achieved a great act of will--" But what he said was borne away like chaff. "What good was it? Everything is useless. In spite of what I have tried to do, I am alone. My sin cannot change the face of things. "It is not by sin that we attain happiness, nor is it by virtue, nor is it by that kind of divine fire by which one makes great instinctive decisions and which is neither good nor evil. It is by none of these things that one reaches happiness. One /never/ reaches happiness." She paused, and said, as if she felt her fate recoiling upon her: "Yes, I know I have done wrong, that those who love me most would detest me if they knew. My mother, if she knew--she who is so indulgent--would be so unhappy. I know that our love exists with the reprobation of all that is wise and just and is condemned by my mother's tears. But what's the use of being ashamed any more? Mother, if you knew, you would have pity on my happiness." "You are naughty," he murmured feebly. She stroked the man's forehead lightly, and said in a tone of extraordinary assurance: "You know I don't deserve to be called naughty. You know what I am saying is above a personal application. You know better than I do that one is alone. One day when I was speaking about the joy of living and you were as sad as I am to-day, you looked at me, and said you did not know what I was thinking, in spite of my explanations. You showed me that love is only a kind of festival of solitude, and holding me in your arms, you ended by exclaiming, 'Our love--I am our love,' and I gave the inevitable answer, alas, 'Our love--I am our love.'" He wanted to speak, but she checked him. "Stop! Take me, squeeze my hands, hold me close, give me a long, long kiss, do with me what you want--just to bring yourself close to me, close to me! And tell me that you are suffering. Why, don't you feel /my/ grief?" He said nothing, and in the twilight shroud that wrapped them round, I saw his head make the needless gesture of denial. I saw all the misery emanating from these two, who for once by chance in the shadows did not know how to lie any more.