I dressed with my mind a blank. I abstained, when I was ready, from knocking at the door of the room next to mine, where my father slept. I was afraid of letting him see the distracted look on my face. I went downstairs and out of doors. Where should I go to? I avoided the frequented streets, and the park where I liked to sit. It was a long round. How my leg weighed on me. But I forced myself to walk quickly, as long as I continued to meet any one. When I got beyond the suburbs some power or other abruptly ceased to support me. Faint, and at the end of my strength, I was only just able to reach a heap of stones, upon which I sank down. There was a nip in the air. The sun, like a dull ball, appeared behind a livid curtain of cloud. What a feeling of irremediable collapse! All my strength, physical and moral, was annulled. My despair alone lived on in the depths of my frozen heart. For a long while I experienced a secret, harrowing joy in imagining the future, such as it might have been. My sorrow was exasperated by turning over such visions in my mind, and reached a state of paroxysm. I could not bear it. I got up, picked up my stick, and went on along the road. Not far away, beyond some fields, a line of poplars made me guess where the Allier lay. I was drawn on by a fatal longing to reach the bank of the river. Poor soul, born but to disappear! Swollen by the autumn rains, the river filled its huge bed to the brink. It was a glaucous, sinister stretch of water. Eddying foam was swept along on a strong current. I was tempted. I approached the bank. It fell away in a steep slope towards the stream which swished along it with a monotonous gurgle. I planted my stick at the extreme edge among the fragments of slate. I leant over--it was horribly alluring--and I granted myself a certain delay. What a stirring moment that was while my fate hung in the balance. I had come to the end of my tether. What had brought me there? Was it not the paltry idea of bringing remorse to birth in Jeannine's heart? But what would she know of my wretched fate? And why revenge myself so basely? I scrupled to annihilate the vestige of strength which I constituted. Lastly, there was the disdain for an act of romantic impotence. And then, what pulled me up short was the thought of the old man, who must have heard me go out, who was alarmed no doubt already, whose life hung upon my return. Then I sat down. Ceasing to hypnotise myself by gazing at the torrent eating away the bank at my feet, my eyes strayed to the horizon. By a stretch of the imagination it seemed to me that I dominated the field where my individual happiness had been shattered. The War! Had I not come--I remember the day before--to deify the word! Yes, it was a progressive spell. The War! While childishly attributing the rejuvenation of my soul to it, I had ended by seeing in it the fairy who was cruel to be kind. So many thinkers and poets had bowed down to this terrible goddess, before me.