in her hands, this way and
that, questioned its mystery on all sides, and hunted down, within its
circular rim, apparitions, images, rudiments of names, shadowy
initials, resemblances to different people, rough outlines of objects,
omens in embryo, symbols of trifles, which told her that she would be
_victorious_. She wanted to see these things and she compelled herself
to discover them. Under her tense gaze the porcelain became alive with
the visions of her insomnia; her disappointments, her hatreds, the faces
she detested, arose gradually from the magic plate and the designs drawn
thereon by chance. By her side the candle, which she forgot to snuff,
gave forth an intermittent, dying light: it sank lower and lower in the
silence, night came on apace, and Germinie, as if turned to stone in her
agony, always remained rooted there, alone and face to face with her
fear of the future, trying to decipher in the dregs of the coffee the
confused features of her destiny, until she thought she could detect a
cross, beside a woman who resembled Jupillon's cousin--a cross, that is
to say, _a speedy death_.

XLVI

The love which she lacked, and which it was her determination to deny
herself, became the torment of her life, incessant, abominable torture.
She had to defend herself against the fevers of her body and the
irritations from without, against the easily aroused emotions and the
indolent cowardice of her flesh, against all the solicitations of nature
by which she was assailed. She had to contend with the heat of the day,
with the suggestions of the darkness, with the moist warmth of stormy
weather, with the breath of her past and her memories, with the pictures
suddenly thrown upon the background of her mind, with the voices that
whispered caressingly in her ear, with the emotions that sent a thrill
of tenderness into her every limb.

Weeks, months, years, the frightful temptation endured, and she did not
yield or take another lover. Fearful of herself, she avoided man and
fled from his sight. She continued her domestic, unsocial habits, always
closeted with mademoiselle, or else above in her own room. On Sundays
she did not leave the house. She had ceased to consort with the other
maids in the house, and, in order to occupy her time and forget
herself, she plunged into vast undertakings in the way of sewing, or
buried herself in sleep. When musicians came into the courtyard she
closed the windows in order not to