She knew very well that there was in reality neither a Carmel of passion nor a chain of love, nor a beautiful and terrible vocation against which the predestined one resisted in vain; she knew very well that love was only a brief intoxication from which one recovered a little sadder.

And yet, perhaps, she did not know everything; perhaps there were loves in which one was deliciously lost.

She put out her lamp.

The dreams of her first youth came back to her..