breathed more freely, I was able to stretch out my
arms with greater vigor, I felt a new buoyancy in my
limbs; at last, one might say, some one had removed
the crushing weight which for so long a time I had
borne on my shoulders. I experienced a keen joy in
moving my limbs, in exercising my muscles and joints,
in setting my nerves into vibration, when it thus came
upon me one morning, in a leap from my bed. Was I
not really awakening from a slumber as deep as death?
Was I not recovering from a sort of catalepsy, in
which my whole being, sunk in torpor, had known
the horrible nightmare of non-existence? I was like
one buried who finds the light of day again, like one
famished who is given a piece of bread, like one sentenced to death who receives his pardon. . . . I went to the window and looked out into the street. The
slanting rays of the sun were flooding the houses in
front of me with a golden mist; on the sidewalk people
were hurriedly passing, preoccupied, with a happy
gait; carriages joyously crossed each other's path.
The hustle and bustle and noise of life intoxicated,
stirred, carried me away, and I cried out:
"I don't love you any more! I don't love you any more!"
In the space of a second I had a very clear vision of a new life of work and happiness. I was to cleanse myself of this filth, to seize my interrupted dreams; not only did I want to redeem my honor, but I wanted also to achieve a glory so great, so undisputed, so universal, that Juliette would burst with spite for having lost a man like me. I already saw myself perpetuated in bronze and marble by posterity, placed upon columns and symbolic pedestals, filling the centuries to come with my immortalized image. And what gave me particular pleasure was the thought that Juliette
