She thought of returning to Surville, where Jean had bidden her good-by, where she had spent those last weeks with him, those beloved days of the end of the world. To find herself there in present circumstances would be atrocious pain; so much the better! There was only one sort of torture that she feared; that which should forbid her to live in intimate union with the memory of Jean. To suffer, to suffer even to martyrdom, to the martyrdom which Jean's death was causing her, this was the greatest good for which she could ask. Odette set out for Surville. VI It was the end of October. The war, still violent and deadly along all that line of conflict which was called the battle of the Aisne, was becoming more terrible in the north, and was being carried over into Belgium, as at the beginning. Universal anguish, for a time checked by the victory of the Marne, was as acute as in the first days. Surville, on the seashore, could not but be deserted and sad at this season. The Hôtel de Normandie closed, the public houses that were open far from comfortable, the best way to be alone and not hear war talk from morning till night was to rent a small villa. A pavilion was recommended; it was separated from the street by a row of poplars with yellowing foliage and a narrow grass-plot where two pergolas were in summer covered with climbing roses. At this season the dull melancholy of this abode was accentuated by the silence of the dead town. Odette found that it suited her. No sooner had she arrived than she had made a pilgrimage under the closed windows and drawn-down blinds of the room that she had occupied with Jean. The wind was blowing from the country, driving the heavy clouds out to sea; the old Casino, once so gay, was boarded up; at the door there still hung a poster announcing the races. Odette followed the alley, passed over the dunes between the deserted tennis-courts, and went down to the beach, where she could indulge in the bitterness of unmingled grief. This was where she had planted her tent and lived with Jean through a fortnight of sunny days, in utter abandonment to a delight that arose from the earth or fell down from the magnificent sky. Children had been playing about; excited little dogs had been barking to coax them to throw a pebble into the sea. They had ceased their indolent repose only to plunge into the sea, swimming side by side with delight.