ourself. It was natural.
But you are not wicked at heart. Don't be angry any more. Don't frighten
me any more. Don't come to see me any more. I'll come to you; I'll come
often. I'll bring you flowers."

She longed to deceive him, to soothe him with lying promises, to say to
him "Stay where you are; do not be restless any longer; stay where you
are, and I swear to you that I will never again do anything to offend
you; I promise to submit to your will." But she dared not lie over a
grave, and she was sure that it would be useless, that the dead know
everything.

A little wearied, she continued awhile, more indolently, her prayers
and supplications, and she realized that she no longer felt the horror
with which the tombs had formerly inspired her; that she had no fear of
the dead man. She sought the reason for this, and discovered that he did
not frighten her because he was not there.

And she mused:

"He is not there; he is never there; he is everywhere except where they
laid him. He is in the streets, in the houses, in the rooms."

And she rose to her feet in despair, feeling sure that henceforth she
would meet him everywhere except in the cemetery.

CHAPTER XVI

After a fortnight's patience Ligny urged her to resume their former
intercourse. The period which she herself had fixed had elapsed. He
would not wait any longer. She suffered as much as he did in refusing
herself to him. But she dreaded to see the dead man return. She found
lame excuses for postponing appointments; at last she confessed that she
was afraid. He despised her for displaying so little common sense and
courage. He no longer felt that she loved him, and he spoke harshly to
her, but he pursued her incessantly with his desire.

Bitter days and barren hours followed. As she no longer dared to seek
the shelter of a roof in his company, they used to take a cab, and after
driving for hours about the outskirts of the city they would alight in
some gloomy avenue, wandering far down it under the bitter east wind,
walking swiftly, as though chastised by the breath of an unseen wrath.

Once, however, the weather was so mild that it filled them with its soft
languor. Side by side they trod the deserted paths of the Bois de
Boulogne. The buds, which were beginning to swell on the tips of the
slender black branches, dyed the tree-tops violet under the rosy sky. To
their left stretched the fields, dotted with clumps of leafless trees,
and the hou