"I don't understand you at all," said Clotilde; "a thing that bores me bores me, and when anything hurts me I simply must push it away or go away myself." "I used to be like you," said Odette; "I am still, in all that concerns my grief. For that there is no balm; nothing will ever heal it. Perhaps there is something exceptional in love; it takes possession of us, it makes us happy to an extent that blinds us to everything besides, or it wounds us to death. But all that is not love, and what tries to embitter us must carry its antidote within itself." "When we love," said Clotilde, "nothing else can seriously affect us." "Notwithstanding which, I assure you that I have often within the past two years been painfully affected, and I have not ceased to love." "You think so, my poor Odette! But if Jean had continued to be with you, you would have had no feeling but for him." "Clotilde, you are spoiled by happiness; you understand nothing!" Clotilde shook her head. She felt that she had somewhat nettled her friend in unveiling her thought to her. "You will come again all the same, Odette? Even to face my blind man?" "If you wish," said Odette sadly. XXVII Clotilde's state of mind, which she had until now rather enjoyed, began to trouble Odette. She had thought herself entirely in harmony with Clotilde, just as Clotilde had imagined herself to think in unison with Odette, because both of them loved, and because until then nothing had seemed to come between them. But to-day Odette was repelled by Clotilde's attitude, her ivory tower, her aversion to suffering, and her lack of suavity. "I used to be like her," Odette said to herself. "Am I different now because events have taken me by storm? Or is it indeed, as she says, because Jean, whom I surely do not love less, is not here to engross me?" She was terrorized by this idea, which nevertheless she felt to be false. She was overwhelmed with remorse and accused herself of having grown cool in the worship of her husband. It was true that too many things were conspiring to lead her away from the thought which ought to be her only one. She returned once more to her mortuary chapel, her relics, her portraits. To guard against her sorrow being frittered away by the many sympathies with which her walks inspired her, she shut herself up at home. The winter, aggravated by the hostile cold, was so depressing, the news from without was so gloomy, that Odette fell into a sort of neurasthenia. She, who had never known illness, was constrained to call in a physician. He ordered, not medicine, but diversion at any cost. "There are still many theatres open," he said; "I don't ask you to go to see 'gay pieces,' which are cruder than anything else, but go to something good. A woman of your years," he added, "has no right to let herself die of inanition."