Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a
tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have
convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself.
He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in
Lourdes.
He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of
the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing
him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but
was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns
of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had
evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He
remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself
into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing in the
vacuum in his skull--"I shall never see her again. . . . Can such a
thing be possible?"
He drowsed for a few seconds, only to be awakened with the sensation
that some horrible explosion was sending him through the air. And so,
with sweats of anguish, he wakefully passed the hours until in the gloom
of his room the dawn showed a milky rectangle of light, and began to be
reflected on the window curtains.
The velvet-like caress of day finally closed his eyes. Upon awaking he
found that the morning was well advanced, and he hurried to the garden
of the grotto.
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