He was in a very good humour, and took an interest in the trees and rivers and houses that he passed. The monotony of the apple orchards and the fields of cows did not bore him in the least. Having nothing to desire he was enjoying the mere process of living!
He stopped at Carentan to look for a house in which he could hide a bed, failed to find one, but discovered a very decent furnished room. The skipper of an English coasting steamer occupied it sometimes, but the people would be happy to have a more sober tenant. Everything smelt strongly of whiskey. He made the bargain, had the room cleaned, paid well and made no concealment of his intentions. "Oh, yes," they answered, "the other tenant used to bring them back with him too. It's all right provided there's no noise."
"Them, he thought; that's what she'll be for these people. Just one of them."
He left them and strolled along the shore to Grandcamp, thinking of nothing but the little sensations of the moment. He was not one of those who complain that the seaside is fringed with houses, that there are shelters where one can take refuge from wind and rain, iced drinks to melt the salt out of one's throat, board and lodgings and the movement of a second-rate, but sometimes curious, humanity. These little boys destined to become gross males, little girls whom time will turn into pretentious young ladies and rich middle class brides—what pretty and delicate animals they are! Much more amusing than little dogs or kittens! He had often pondered on the mystery of intelligence among children. How is it that these subtle creatures are so quickly transformed into imbeciles? Why should the flower of these fine graceful plants be silliness?
"But isn't it the same with animals, and especially among the animals that approach our physiology most closely? The great apes, so intelligent in their youth, become idiotic and cruel as soon as they reach puberty. There is a cape there which they never double. A few men succeed; their intelligence escapes shipwreck, and they float free and smiling on the tranquillized sea. Sex is an absinthe whose strength only the strong can stand; it poisons the blood of the commonalty of men. Women succumb even more surely to this crisis. Those who have been intelligent in their critical age is past. In both sexes there are two successive crises: the sexual crisis and the sensual crisis. The first comes at a fixed period for the individuals of the same race and the same environment. The second generally coincides with the completion of growth, with the state of physiological perfection. Sometimes, when decline is beginning, a third crisis occurs, which is like the first, inasmuch as it almost always brings with it a condition of sentimentality. Hervart, I feel almost sure, is going through this crisis now; Hortense and I are at the second; Rose is undergoing the first."
Leonor, like many of his contemporaries, despised his profession. He was an architect, but his desire was to write scientific works, showing that physiology is the base of all the so-called psychical phenomena. All the acts which men call virtuous or vicious were, he considered, made inevitable by the state of the organs and the disposition of the nervous system. Nothing made him want to laugh so much as the pretensions of cold-blooded women who make a merit of their chastity; and he was amazed, after so much scientific data, at the way in which men went on considering the explosions of the organism as voluntary or involuntary. The influence of conscience on human conduct seemed to him null. He had demonstrated this to one of his friends, a master in an ecclesiastical school, by means of a grandfather clock which stood in his study. "What you call conscience," he said, "is the weight that works the striking apparatus. But I can take off that weight and the clock will go on making the hours without striking them." This friend had confessed that his own very real chastity was entirely involuntary: women roused no desire in him. He had once made the experiment and had obtained, after the greatest difficulty, only a most disappointing result. "I believe," he added, "that most of my colleagues are like me. Some of them, more favoured by nature, employ their faculties in secret; another has a private vice; and I know one who is a danger for children. For the most part we are chaste by the will of nature herself. Debauchery would be a torture for me. I am only interested in mathematics."
Leonor, however, had no intention of succumbing to the embraces of the sensual crisis.
"Let me profit by this momentary disposition, but let me preserve at the same time a certain spirit. I mustn't compromise either my physical, intellectual or social fortune. Within these limits I can give myself body and soul to this midsummer madness. Hortense is a perfect violin; I will be her devoted bow. And between her hands, am not I also a good instrument? Oh! the fools who pass their life fighting against their passions! After that, what happens? When they see that the garden is almost flowerless, they come in melancholy fashion to smell the last rose: the wind passes and they find only a bush of leaves and thorns! But shouldn't I also ask: after that? May it not be that the only delicious thing in life is the constancy of an unconscious love? I know only too well that I love Hortense, and I know only too well why I love her. It is certain that on the day when she appears to me less beautiful I shall leave her. Suppose I let it go at that? Suppose I looked for something else? Is variety as satisfactory as quality? Let's have a look on this beach.... I must make use of my state of mind, that is to say of the pleasing irritation of my nerves...."
Chance is scarcely ever anything more than our aptitude to take advantage of circumstances. On the beach Leonor met a young and pretty woman, a young woman of the sort that one sees so many of, the sort whose dress and figure tell one nothing decisive. He might have gone on contemplating the melancholy death of the wave at her feet; but he was walking for this very purpose—to meet a woman walking by herself: his desire created the chance. For a moment he was afraid that she was going to make advances, but she passed on. He followed. Skirting the water all the while, the young woman moved away from the frequented part of the sands. She tried to pick up a ribbon of weed, but it escaped her. Leonor reached it. Out of the water, it was a long vicious whip-lash. She thanked him, embarrassed by the present.
"Throw it back, then. It's like most of our desires. As soon as one holds them fast, one would like to throw them back into the sea."