It was also under the softening influence of alcohol that we looked at the vague smile on those lips with the teeth of a child, without stopping to reflect on the beauty of those youthful teeth, and seeing nothing except her fixed and almost idiotic smile, which no longer contrasted with the dull expression of her looks, but, on the contrary, strengthened them.  For in spite of her teeth, it was the smile of an old woman in our imagination, and as for me, I was really pleased at the thought of being so acute when I inferred that this grandmother with such pale lips, had the set of teeth of a young girl, and still, thanks to the softening influence of alcohol, I was not angry with her for this artifice.  I even thought it particularly praiseworthy, since, after all, the poor creature thus carried out her calling conscientiously, which was to seduce us.  For there was no possible doubt about the matter, that this grandmother was nothing more nor less than a prostitute.

And then, drunk!  Horribly drunk, much more drunk than Ledantec and I were, for we really could manage to say:  “Oh!  Pity the poor, poor old woman!” While she was incapable of articulating a single syllable, of making a gesture, or even of imparting a gleam of promise, a furtive flash of allurement to her eyes.  With her hands crossed on her stomach, and resting against the front of the public-house, with her whole body as stiff as if she had been in a state of catalepsy, she had nothing alluring about her, except her sad smile, and that inspired us with all the more pity because she was even more drunk than we were, and so, by identical, spontaneous movement, we each of us seized her by an arm, to take her into the public-house with us.

To our great astonishment she resisted, sprang back, and so was in the shadow again, out of the ray of light which came through the door, while, at the same time, she began to walk through the darkness and to drag us with her, for she was clinging to our arms.  We followed her without speaking and without knowing where we were going, but without the least uneasiness on that score.  Only, when she suddenly burst into violent sobs as she walked, Ledantec and I began to sob in unison.

The cold and the fog had suddenly congested our brains again, and we had again lost all precise consciousness of our acts, of our thoughts and of our sensations.  Our sobs had nothing of grief in them, but we were floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss, and I can remember that at that moment it was no longer the exterior world which seemed to me as if I were looking at it through the penumbra of an aquarium; it was I myself, an I composed of three, which was changing into something that was floating adrift in something, though what it was I did not know, composed of palpable fog and intangible water, and it was exquisitely delightful.

From that moment I remember nothing more until what follows, and which had the effect of a clap of thunder on me, and made me rise up from the bottom of the depth to which I had descended.