"No, no! My heart is cankered, and my lips have drunk the poison which kills souls, the poison which damns angels like you; don't look at me so, for my eyes will defile you and you will be like Juliette!..."
The mass was over, the vision disappeared. There arose a noise of moved chairs and heavy steps in the church, and the children of the choir put out the tapers on the altar.... Still kneeling, the girl was praying. Of her face I could distinguish only a profile lost in the shadow of the white veil. She got up, after making the sign of the cross. I had to move my chair to let her pass. She passed ... and I felt a real joy, as though in refusing the love which she offered me in thought I had just now fulfilled a great duty.
She occupied my mind for a week. I resumed my furious walks through the moor, on the strand, and I wished I could conquer my passion. While walking, driven by the wind, carried along by that peculiar exaltation occasioned by rain pelting the sea shore, I imagined all sorts of romantic conversations with demoiselle Landudec and nocturnal adventures which took place in enchanted and lunar places. Like the characters in an opera, we vied with each other in sublime thought, in heroic sacrifices, in wonderful devotion; under the spell of the passionate rhythms and stirring recurrences of the song of the elements, we extended the boundaries of human self-denial. A sobbing orchestra accompanied the anguish of our voices.
She, in a very long white gown, with a bewildered look and outstretched arms ... I, gloomy, inexorable, the calves of my legs swelling under the violet silk tight garment, my hair disheveled by the wind.
And the violins emitted inaudible plaints, the wind instruments moaned, while the double basses and the dulcimers rumbled like tempest and peals of thunder.
A curious thing! Demoiselle Landudec and Juliette became one; I no longer separated them, I confused them in my dreams, extravagant and melodramatic. Both were too pure for me.
They passionately kissed my wounds, spoke of death and cried: "I love you! I love you!"
And vanquished, subdued, redeemed by love I fell at their feet. The old father, dying, spread his arms over us and blessed us, the three of us!