Thérèse, for her part, was heart-broken and terrified at the same time. Why had the word parting been suddenly hurled at her like a shrill cry amid that tranquil atmosphere that they were breathing together? what was the occasion of it? how had she provoked it? She tried in vain to determine. Laurent himself could not have explained it to her. All that had followed was grossly cruel, and how angry he must have been, that man of exquisite breeding, to have said it! But what was the cause of his anger? Had he a serpent within him that gnawed his heart and extorted from him wild and blasphemous words?
She had followed him with her eyes down the slope until he had entered the dark shadow of the ravine. Then she saw him no more, and was surprised at the time that elapsed before he appeared on the slope of the other hill. She was frightened at last—he might have fallen over some precipice. In vain did her eager glances question the grass-grown depths, bristling with huge, dark rocks. She rose, intending to call to him, when an indescribable cry of distress reached her ears, a hoarse, ghastly, desperate shriek, which made her hair stand on end.
She darted away like an arrow in the direction of the voice. If there had really been a precipice, she would have rushed over the edge without reflection; but there was only a steep incline, where she slipped several times on the moss and tore her dress on the bushes. Nothing stopped her; she reached Laurent's side, how, she knew not, and found him on his feet, with haggard eyes and trembling convulsively.
"Ah! here you are," he said, grasping her arm; "you did well to come! I should have died!"
And, like Don Juan after the reply of the statue, he added in a sharp, abrupt tone: "Let us go away from here!"
He led her to the road, walking at random, and unable to tell what had happened to him.
He became calmer at last, after ten or fifteen minutes, and sat down beside her in a clearing. They had no idea where they were; the ground was strewn with flat rocks which resembled tombs, and among them grew juniper-trees, which one might well have mistaken at night for cypresses.
"Mon Dieu!" said Laurent, suddenly, "are we in a cemetery? Why did you bring me here?"
"It is simply a tract of untilled land," she replied. "We passed through many similar ones this evening. If you don't like it, let's not stop here, but go back under the large trees."
"No, let us stay here," he rejoined. "Since chance or destiny brings these thoughts of death into my mind, I may as well face them and exhaust their horror. They have their charm, like everything else, have they not, Thérèse? Everything that moves the imagination powerfully, affords us enjoyment, more or less painful. When a head is to fall on the scaffold, the multitude goes to see, and it is altogether natural. We cannot live upon mild emotions alone; we need terrible emotions to make us realize the intensity of life."