What a metamorphosis. She has resumed her former appearance of a lady. She is scarcely pretty. In the glimmer of the night-lamp she seems sharp-featured and masked by a ghastly pallor, as if the generous sun had abjured her forever.
Each turn of the wheels brings us closer to the town. The young woman drawing herself up reassumes her manner of a somebody. She is back in her setting, already less unhappy because she is nearer her unhappiness. She pulls out her watch. Five minutes still. Time enough to lean on one's elbow and think sad thoughts pro tem, which come running like a docile flock.
I put my hand up to my forehead to prevent her searching my eyes for the fountain of compassion denied her. There is no compassion for her in me, neither is there in the opal-tinted meadows, nor under the sapphire of the sky. To find compassion she would have to reconstruct her life from top to bottom. A fate such as hers lies outside the fate of humanity; suffering such as hers is beside and apart from the suffering of humanity. I say her fate has not made her suffer enough yet and the woman does not deserve to live.
A woman who does nothing is fallen in the sight of love.
He and I are going to the country on our holiday. I have been thirsty for its freshness....
The carriage is empty now. You feel the double pulse of the train as it rolls between two slopes spitting out rings of smoke, pursued, you'd think, by its own speed, travelling on, on, on....
Strange days, without axis or prop or stay, passed as if outside of something, as if you had been asked to step up to a door but not invited inside. Nature is not easy to reach and penetrate.
We had longed to live in this spot conceiving it beforehand as an oasis set in dew. And here it is under our feet with its earth which smells good and its breezes which tinge our cheeks. For all our ardor and assiduity nature preserves her mystery; she is an unresponsive mother insensible to the clamor of her children. When we draw near, she stops talking and either drops a veil or retires completely into seclusion. "You would like to assay my movements, cull the delicate scent of the grass blade by blade, meditate like this tree, follow the steps of the peasants who are my only kith and kin, be a wave in space, unravel the relations of things, and delude yourselves with my warmth. That is what everybody wants. May your wish recoil on you. Do not try to reach me. Do not turn your heads in my direction. Let the thrills and tremors of your feelings pass between yourselves. I know you not."