But eight months of suffering, of doubt and torturing grief, and on top of that the whirlwind of their crazy passion, had wasted his strength and broken his will: he felt that he could do nothing now, that he was no longer master of himself…. Ah! what did it matter, after all?
Anna, feeling certain that she was doomed to everlasting death, stretched every nerve to catch and hold the last minute of her life: Christophe's sorrowful face lit by the flickering candle, the shadows on the wall, a footstep in the street, the cold contact of the steel in her hand…. She clung to these sensations, as a shipwrecked man clings to the spar that sinks beneath his weight. Afterwards all was terror. Why not prolong the time of waiting? But she said to herself:
"I must…."
She said good-by to Christophe, with no tenderness, with the haste of a hurried traveler fearful of losing the train: she bared her bosom, felt for her heart, and laid the mouth of the revolver against it. Christophe hid his face. Just as she was about to fire she laid her left hand on Christophe's. It was the gesture of a child dreading to walk in the darkness….
Then a few frightful seconds passed…. Anna did not fire. Christophe wanted to raise his head, to take her in his arms: and he was afraid that his very movement might bring her to the point of firing. He heard nothing more: he lost consciousness…. A groan from Anna pierced his heart. He got up. He saw Anna with her face distorted in terror. The revolver had fallen down on to the bed. She kept on saying plaintively;
"Christophe!… It has missed fire!…"
He took the pistol: it had lain long forgotten and had grown rusty: but the trigger was in working order. Perhaps the cartridges had gone bad with exposure to the air.—Anna held out her hand for the revolver.
"Enough! Enough!" he implored her.
She commanded him:
"The cartridges!"