At first she felt as though her heart were swelling and growing, as though her spirit, just now heavy and burdened with sorrow, were growing light, as light as if the weight oppressing it had been raised, lessened, removed.
A lively and pleasant sensation filled her whole body, penetrating to the tips of her fingers and toes, entering into her flesh, a hazy drunkenness, a happy delirium.
She saw that the cotton wool was dry, and was surprised that she was not yet dead. Her senses were sharpened, intensified and more alert. She heard every word uttered on the veranda. Prince Kravalow was relating how he had killed an Austrian general in a duel.
Far away, in the heart of the country, she heard the noises of the night; the intermittent barking of a dog, the short croak of toads, the faint shiver of the leaves.
She took up the bottle, soaked the little piece of cotton wool, and began again to breathe it in. For some moments she felt nothing; then the languid, delightful, secure contentment that she had felt at first took hold of her once more.
Twice she poured out more chloroform, greedy now of the physical and mental sensation, the drowsy languor in which her senses were drowning. She felt as though she no longer had bones or flesh or arms or legs. All had been gently taken from her, and she had felt nothing. The chloroform had drained away her body, leaving nothing but her brain, wider, freer, more lively, more alert than she had ever felt it before.
She remembered a thousand things she had forgotten, little details of her childhood, trifles which gave her pleasure. Her mind, suddenly endowed with an agility hitherto unknown to it, leapt from one strange idea to another, ran through a thousand adventures, wandered at random in the past, and rambled through hopes of the future. This rapid, careless process of thought filled her with a sensual delight; she enjoyed a divine happiness in her dreams.
She still heard the voices, but could no longer distinguish the words, which seemed to her to take on another sense. She sank down and down, wandering in a strange and shifting fairyland.
She was on a large boat which glided beside a very pleasant country filled with flowers. She saw people on the banks, and these people were talking very loudly, and then she found herself on land again, without wondering how she got there, and Servigny, dressed like a prince, came to take her to a bullfight. The streets were full of people talking, and she listened to their conversations, which did not in the least surprise her, but were as though she had always known them; for through her dreamy intoxication she still heard her mother’s friends laughing and chatting on the veranda.
Then all grew dim.
Then she awoke, deliciously sleepy, and had some difficulty in recalling herself to consciousness.
So she was not dead yet.
But she felt so rested, and in such comfort and in such peace of mind, that she was in no hurry to finish the affair. She would have liked this glorious languor to last forever.
She breathed slowly, and looked at the moon facing her above the trees. Something in her soul was changed. Her thoughts were no longer those of a short while ago. The chloroform, soothing her body and mind, had assuaged her grief, and put to sleep her will to die.
Why not live? Why should she not be loved? Why should she not live happily? Everything now seemed possible, easy, sure. Everything in life was sweet, was good and charming. But because she wished to go on dreaming forever, she poured more of this dream-water on to the cotton wool, and again began to breathe it in, occasionally removing the poison from her nostrils, so that she would not take too much, so that she would not die.
She looked at the moon, and saw a face in it, a woman’s face. She began once more to roam about the country, adrift in the hazy visions of an opium dream. The face hung in the centre of the sky; then it began to sing; in a well-known voice it sang the “Alleluia d’Amour.” It was the Marquise, who had just gone indoors to play the piano.
Yvette had wings now. She was flying through the night, a beautiful clear night, over woods and rivers. She flew with vast delight, opening and beating her wings, wafted by the wind as by a caressing touch. She whirled through the air, which kissed her skin, and glided along so fast, so fast, that she had no time to see anything below her, and she found herself sitting beside a pond, with a line in her hand—she was fishing.
Something tugged at the line; she pulled it in and brought up the magnificent pearl necklace she had once desired. She was not in the least astonished at the catch, and looked at Servigny, who had appeared beside her, though she did not know how, and was fishing too; he was just landing a wooden roundabout horse.
Then once again she felt that she was waking, and heard them calling to her from below.
Her mother had said: “Blow out the candle.”
Then Servigny’s voice, clear and humorous: “Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”
They all took up the cry in chorus.
“Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”
Again she poured chloroform on to the cotton wool, but, as she did not want to die, she kept it at some distance from her face, so that she could breathe the fresh air while filling her room with the asphyxiating odour of the narcotic, for she knew that someone would come upstairs. So she arranged herself in a charming attitude of abandonment, a mimicking of
