They imagined an abyss still separated them, and at moments asked themselves how they could get over this unfathomable depth.

They fancied they were living previous to the murder, when a material obstacle stood between them.
Then they abruptly remembered they would occupy the same apartment that night, in a few hours, and they gazed at one another in astonishment, unable to comprehend why they should be permitted to do so.

They did not feel they were united, but, on the contrary, were dreaming that they had just been violently separated, and one cast far from the other.
The silly chuckling of the guests beside them, who wished to hear them talk familiarly, so as to dispel all restraint, made them stammer and colour.

They could never make up their minds to treat one another as sweethearts in the presence of company.
Waiting had extinguished the flame that had formerly fired them.

All the past had disappeared.