His meditations were suddenly troubled, like the water of a pool into which a swan plunges. The jovial, merry instinct recovered its toy. There was now no means of arguing upon the illusion of suffering: the lashes of presentiment cut his back so keenly and severely that it was clear the hand could not be wheedled by any reasoning.
The child was amusing itself too well. "And yet! and yet!" All was vain and it was true. Entragues, upon returning to his quarters, found this mortal note, mortal in the state of exaltation in which he had lived since the morning, a damper that truly resembled death.
"Inpromptu dinner with the countess who has come on some business. Regrets. Let tomorrow take the place of to-day. S. M."
As he sat reading these lines, his head in his hands, without having removed his hat, gloves, overcoat and cane, he had the misfortune to wish to seek the secret causes; he passed, without stirring, two or three very painful hours. His reasoning went thus: in writing the first letter to me yesterday, she evidently knew how matters stood. He then asked himself why she was playing with him. He employed the whole evening in resolving this difficult question. Finally, after having followed several diverse solutions, he concluded: "Perhaps, as she said, it really was a simple accident." As aching as a victim of the inquisition, after his seance of torture, he fell asleep cursing hope, that torture more subtle than the wooden horse, needles and spiders, a sketch but lately illuminated by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.
He fell asleep, living again the pages of the master in a terrifying nightmare, and only in the morning did rest come.
Upon arising, he was another person, and certitude, pure and clear certitude did not abandon him an instant until evening. At half past eight, the hour chosen and fixed by her, he would see her. Until then he walked with closed eyes, almost like a blind man, all the powers of his mind, all his faculties of idealisation, together with his scorn and skepticism, drowned in that drop of water—Sixtine. He did not even have enough strength for astonishment: a rising moon, a dawning love dominated his horizon. This unique contemplation, by gentle degrees, isolated him in a trance.