Everything seemed to be in a league to avenge itself upon me for I did not know what. I felt as though I should not be able to hold out much longer. Nevertheless, I made up my mind to keep on looking as long as my health and my courage lasted. It might be bad for me, but it was my duty. . . . . . The man was sinking. Death was evidently in the house. It was quite late in the evening. They were sitting at the table opposite each other. I knew their marriage had taken place that afternoon, and that its purpose had been only to solemnise their approaching farewell. Some white blossoms, lilies and azaleas, were strewn on the table, the mantelpiece, and one armchair. He was fading away like those cut flowers. "We are married," he said. "You are my wife. You are my wife, Anna!" It was for the sweetness of saying, "You are my wife," that he had so longed. Nothing more. But he felt so poor, with his few days of life, that it was complete happiness to him. He looked at her, and she lifted her eyes to him--to him who adored her sisterly tenderness--she who had become devoted to his adoration. What infinite emotion lay hidden in these two silences, which faced each other in a kind of embrace; in the double silence of these two human beings, who, I had observed, never touched each other, not even with the tips of their fingers. The girl lifted her head, and said, in an unsteady voice: "It is late. I am going to sleep." She got up. The lamp, which she set on the mantelpiece, lit up the room. She trembled. She seemed to be in a dream and not to know how to yield to the dream. Then she raised her arm and took the pins out of her hair. It fell down her back and looked, in the night, as if it were lit by the setting sun. The man made a sudden movement and looked at her in surprise. Not a word. She removed a gold brooch from the top of her blouse, and a bit of her bosom appeared. "What are you doing, Anna, what are you doing?" "Why, undressing." She wanted to say this in a natural voice, but had not succeeded. He replied with an inarticulate exclamation, a cry from his heart, which was touched to the quick. Stupefaction, desperate regret, and also the flash of an inconceivable hope agitated him, oppressed him. "You are my husband." "Oh," he said, "you know I am nothing." He spoke feebly in a tragic tone. "Married for form's sake," he went on, stammering out fragmentary, incoherent phrases. "I knew it, I knew it--formality--our conventions--" She stopped, with her hand hesitating on her blouse like a flower, and said: "You are my husband. It is your right." He made a faint gesture of denial. She quickly corrected herself. "No, no, it is not your right. I want to do it." I began to understand how kind she was trying to be. She wished to give this man, this poor man who was sinking at her feet, a reward that was worthy of her. She wanted to bestow upon him the gift of the sight of her body.