Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/237

Rh Little by little, the species of energy that Arsène had found in the keenness of her sorrow gave place to a stuporous collapse, which Madame de Piennes mistook for calmness. She continued her exhortations; but Arsène, immovable, did not listen to all of the good and beautiful reasons which were given her for preferring divine love rather than worldly; her eyes were dry, her teeth pressed convulsively together. While her protectress talked to her of heaven and the hereafter, she dreamed of the present. The sudden arrival of Max had instantly awakened in her breast foolish illusions, but the look of Madame de Piennes had dissipated them still more quickly. After the happy dream of a moment, Arsène awakened to the sad reality, grown a hundredfold more horrible for having been momentarily forgotten.

Your physician will tell you, madam, that shipwrecked sailors, overcome by sleep in the midst of their pangs of hunger, dream that they are feasting at a bountiful table. They awaken still more famished, and wish that they had not slept. Arsène suffered a torture comparable to these shipwrecked mariners. In days of old she had loved Max in such manner as she was capable of loving. It was with him that she would always have preferred going to the thea-