dol, a thing. He was blaspheming, he was invoking
infinity and eternity in vain, paying lip service to it by daily prayer
that had become perfunctory.

They let the banality drop. The woman remained pensive for a while,
then she shook her head and she--/she/ pronounced the word of excuse, of
glorification; more than that, the word of truth:

"I was so unhappy!"

. . . . .

"How long ago it was!" she began.

It was her work of art, her poem and her prayer, to repeat this story,
low and precipitately, as if she were in the confessional. You felt
that she came to it quite naturally, without transition, so completely
did it possess her whenever they were alone.

She was simply dressed. She had removed her black gloves and her coat
and hat. She wore a dark skirt and a red waist upon which a thin gold
chain was hanging.

She was a woman of thirty, perhaps, with regular features and smooth
silken hair. It seemed to me that I knew her, but could not place her.

She began to speak of herself quite loudly, and tell of her past which
had been so hard.

"What a life I led! What monotony, what emptiness! The little town,
our house, the drawing-room with the furniture always arranged just so,
their places never changed, like tombstones. One day I tried to put
the table that stood in the centre in another place. I could not do
it."

Her face paled, grew more luminous.

He listened to her. A smile of patience and resignation, which soon
was like a pained expression of weariness, crept across his handsome
face. Yes, he was really handsome, though a little disconcerting, with
his large eyes, which women must have adored, his drooping moustache,
his tender, distant air. He seemed to be one of those gentle people
who think too much and do evil. You would have said that he was above
everything and capable of everything. Listening to her with a certain
remoteness, but stirred by desire for her, he had the air of waiting.

And suddenly the veil fell from my eyes, and reality lay stripped
before me. I saw that between these two people there was an immense
difference, like an infinite discord, sublime to behold because of its
depths, but so painful that it bruised my heart.

/He/ was moved only by his longing for her; /she,/ by her need of
escaping from her ordinary life. Their desires were not the same.
They seemed united, but they dwelt far apart.

They did not talk the same language. When they spoke of the