And she said nothing further. She had turned completely round, and was contemplating the strange picture which was disappearing behind her. It was now almost dark; dusk was gradually enveloping all like a fine dust. The lake, when looked at front ways, in the pale light which still hovered over it, seemed to become rounder, and had the appearance of an immense plate of brass; on either side, the plantations of evergreens, the slim straight stems of which looked as though they issued from the still water, assumed at this hour the aspect of violet tinted colonnades, describing with their regular architecture the elaborate curves of the shores; then, right at the back, rose groups of shrubs and trees, confused masses of foliage, broad black patches closing the horizon. Behind these patches there shone a bright glimmer, an expiring sunset which merely lit up a very small portion of the grey immensity. Above this motionless lake and these low copses, this point of view so peculiarly flat, the vault of heaven opened infinite, deeper and more expanded still. This great extent of sky over this tiny corner of nature caused a shudder, an undefinable sadness; and there descended from these pale altitudes such an autumnal melancholy, so sweet and yet so heartbreaking a darkness, that the Bois, enveloped little by little in a veil of obscurity, lost its worldly graces, and breaking its bounds became filled with all the powerful charm of a forest. The rumble of the vehicles, the bright colours of which became lost in the dim light, sounded like the distant murmurs of leaves and water-courses. Everything had an expiring air. In the centre of the lake, amidst the universal evanescence, the Latin sail of the large pleasure boat stood out, vigorously defined, against the last glow of the sunset. And one could no longer distinguish anything but this sail, this triangle of yellow canvas, inordinately enlarged. In the midst of her satiety, Renée experienced a singular sensation of unavowable desires at the sight of this landscape she no longer recognised, of this bit of nature so artistically worldly, and which by its great shivering darkness seemed changed into some sacred wood, one of those ideal glades in whose recesses the gods of antiquity used to hide their giant loves, their divine adulteries and incests. And as the carriage drove away, it seemed to her that the twilight carried off behind her, hidden in its trembling veil, the land of her dreams, the shameful and unearthly alcove where she might at last have swaged her suffering heart, her wearied flesh. When the lake and the copses, rapidly vanishing in the shades of night, merely appeared as a black bar against the sky, the young woman turned abruptly round, and, in a voice full of tears of vexation, she resumed her interrupted sentence: