"Oh! You don't know what it is. Ask a smoker who is poisoning himself with nicotine whether he can give up his delicious and deadly habit. He will tell you that he has tried a hundred times without success, and he will, perhaps, add: 'So much the worse, but I had rather die than go without tobacco.' That is just the case with me. When once one is in the clutches of such a passion or such a vice, one must give oneself up to it entirely." He got up and gave me his hand. I felt seized with a tumult of rage, and with hatred for this woman, this careless, charming, terrible woman; and as he was buttoning up his coat to go out I said to him, brutally perhaps: "But, in God's name, why don't you let her have a lover, rather than kill yourself like that?" He shrugged his shoulders without replying, and went off. For six months I did not see him. Every morning I expected a letter of invitation to his funeral, but I would not go to his house from a complicated feeling of contempt for him and for that woman; of anger, of indignation, of a thousand sensations. One lovely spring morning I was walking in the Champs Elysees. It was one of those warm days which makes our eyes bright and stir up in us a tumultuous feeling of happiness from the mere sense of existence. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I saw my old friend, looking well, stout and rosy. He gave me both hands, beaming with pleasure, and exclaimed: "Here you are, you erratic individual!" I looked at him, utterly thunderstruck. "Well, on my word--yes. By Jove! I congratulate you; you have indeed changed in the last six months!" He flushed scarlet, and said, with an embarrassed laugh: "One can but do one's best." I looked at him so obstinately that he evidently felt uncomfortable, so I went on: "So--now--you are--completely cured?" He stammered, hastily: "Yes, perfectly, thank you." Then changing his tone, "How lucky that I should have come across you, old fellow. I hope we shall often meet now." But I would not give up my idea; I wanted to know how matters really stood, so I asked: "Don't you remember what you told me six months ago? I suppose--I--eh--suppose you resist now?" "Please don't talk any more about it," he replied, uneasily; "forget that I mentioned it to you; leave me alone. But, you know, I have no intention of letting you go; you must come and dine at my house." A sudden fancy took me to see for myself how matters stood, so that I might understand all about it, and I accepted. His wife received me in a most charming manner, and she was, as a matter of fact, a most attractive woman. Her long hands, her neck and cheeks were beautifully white and delicate, and marked her breeding, and her walk was undulating and delightful. Rene gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead and said: "Has not Lucien come yet?" "Not yet," she replied, in a clear, soft voice; "you know he is almost always rather late."