one again; but really it all means nothing: just a little brilliancy; and then you feel so tired and empty . . . and so discontented . . ."
She stopped suddenly, not caring to say more, and looked at the photograph, now lying on a table beside her. It made her laugh again; and at the same time a tear trembled on her lashes. And she did not know if it gave her a peaceful feeling to be growing old . . . or if she regretted it. It was as though the sun of Nice had imbued her with a strange, dull melancholy which she herself did not understand.
"To live!" she thought. "I have never lived. I would so gladly live once . . . just once. To live! But not like this . . . in a dress that cost six hundred francs. I know that, I know all about it: it is just a momentary brilliancy and then nothing . . . To live! I should like to live . . . really . . . truly. There must be something. But it is a mad wish. I am too old. I am growing old, I am becoming an old woman . . . To live! I have never lived . . . I have been in the world, as a woman of the world; I spoilt that life; then I hid myself . . . I was so anxious to come back to my country and my family; and it all meant nothing but a little show and illusion . . . and a great deal of disappointment. And so the days were wasted, one after the other, and I . . . have . . . never . . . lived . . . just as I throw away my
