Twice, thinking that my presence was a clog to her, I told her to leave me if she liked, to mingle with and greet her friends, to dance in perfect freedom.
"Why should I get up?" she tranquilly answered me. "I am very comfortable and perfectly satisfied. Are you weary of having me beside you?"
It was thus that we passed five hours, face to face, in a corner of the ball-room, I unconsciously sketching men's figures on the marble top of the table with a few drops of liquor spilled from a decanter, she maintaining despairing gravity and silence, her hands crossed upon her lap. I no longer had the least comprehension of what was going on around me. As the ball was drawing towards its close, I felt more like suffocating than ever. This was the last sensation that I remember having experienced. When the final galop drew me from this species of deep stupor, I saw Laurence arise; she swore and kicked aside the little bench, which had become entangled among her skirts; then, she took my arm, and we made a final tour of the ball-room before departing. Upon the threshold, Laurence turned with a yawn, casting a last look at the disordered circle of dancers who were vociferating in the midst of a frightful din.
When we reached the street, an icy blast, which struck me in the face, gave me a delicious feeling. I felt that I was restored to the good, to free and energetic life; the intoxication which had possessed me was driven away, and, beneath the drizzling winter rain, I had an instant of ineffable pleasure, casting from me all the disgusts of the mad night. I comprehended the wretchedness I had left behind me; I would have preferred to go home on foot through the streets, allowing the glacial water to penetrate me and renew my being.
Laurence shivered at my side. She had fastened her handkerchief over her bare shoulders; not daring to venture on, she looked in a despairing way at the sombre sky and at the gutters which were overflowing upon the pavements. The poor girl thought the wintry sky capable only of giving her inflammation of the lungs.
I had two francs left. I hailed a fiacre and helped Laurence into it. She gathered herself up in one of the corners and there sat silently, without ceasing to shiver. I saw her on my left, like a patch of tarnished white. Sometimes, a drop of water, which had remained upon her garments, rolled as far as my hand.
After an instant had elapsed, a sort of drowsiness seized upon me and sleep closed my eyes. As I dozed, I seemed to hear the din of the ball; the jolts of the vehicle whirled me away as in a furious dance, and the axle-trees, with their sharp noise, played those airs which all night long had filled my ears. When, feverish and excited, I opened my eyes, I stared stupidly at the sides of the narrow box which seemed to me full of music and tumult. Then, I felt a biting sensation of cold; finding beneath my hand the icy hand of Laurence, I remembered where I had been and realized where I was. Without, the rain was still falling; the flickering lights fled rapidly behind us.
Fatigue once more made me close my eyes, and again I was drawn into the midst of gigantic circles of dancers, incessantly renewed. It seems to me now that I remember vaguely having danced thus for long hours. I found myself nailed to a bench, beside a shivering woman, and I whirled I know not how in a sort of box which rolled with a tremendous noise at the bottom of a glacial gulf.
Having ascended to my chamber, while Laurence was taking off her costume, I threw all my remaining wood upon the fire, which was faintly burning upon the hearth. Then, I hastened to bed, happy as a child to find myself again amid my poverty, gazing with loving glances at the broad lights and shadows which the flames of the hearth caused to dance up and down along my poor walls. Calmness had taken possession of me from the moment I crossed the threshold of this retired chamber. With my head upon the pillow, at peace and almost smiling, I gazed at my companion who, standing pensively before the fire, was removing her garments one by one.
She soon came to me, and sat down at my feet on the edge of the bed. Breaking, at last, the silence which she had maintained until then, she began to talk with extreme volubility.