In Marie alone lay his cure, his hope, his conviction that he would be born anew and at last find happiness.

In her company he had already forgotten all those distressing problems which had formerly haunted him and bowed him down.
For a week past he had not once thought of death, which had so long been the companion of his every hour.

All the conflict of faith and doubt, the distress roused by the idea of nihility, the anger he had felt at the unjust sufferings of mankind, had been swept away by her fresh cool hands.

She was so healthy herself, so glad to live, that she had imparted a taste for life even to him.

Yes, it was simply that: she was making him a man, a worker, a lover once more.
Then he suddenly remembered Abbe Rose and his painful conversation with that saintly man.