He pictured to himself what his work would have been, and perceived upon the shoulders of his personages, men and women, the livid and terrified face of the drowned man.

The strange picture he thus conjured up, appeared to him atrociously ridiculous and exasperated him.
He no longer dared to paint, always dreading that he would resuscitate his victim at the least stroke of his brush.

If he desired to live peacefully in his studio he must never paint there.

This thought that his fingers possessed the fatal and unconscious faculty of reproducing without end the portrait of Camille, made him observe his hand in terror.

It seemed to him that his hand no longer belonged to him..