The couple began to speak again; and he approached, doubled in two.  Then a faint cry rose from under the branches quite close to him.  He advanced again, always as though in spite of himself, invisibly attracted, without being conscious of anything ... and he saw them.

And he stood there astounded and distracted, as though he had there suddenly discovered a corpse, dead and mutilated.  Then, in an involuntary flash of thought, he remembered the little fish whose entrails he had felt being torn out....  But Madeleine murmured to her companion, in the same tone in which she had often called him by name, and he was seized by such a fit of anguish that he fled with all his might.

He struck against two trees, fell over a root, set off again and suddenly found himself near the river, opposite its rapid branch, which was lit up by the moon.  The torrent-like current made great eddies where the light played upon it.  The high bank dominated the river like a cliff, leaving a wide obscure zone at its foot where the eddies made themselves heard in the darkness.

On the other bank, the country seats of Croissy ranged themselves and could be plainly seen.

Paul saw all this as though in a dream, he thought of nothing, understood nothing, and all things, even his very existence, appeared vague, far-off, forgotten, done with.

The river was there.  Did he know what he was doing?  Did he wish to die?  He was mad.  He turned himself, however, towards the island, towards her, and in the still air of the night, in which the faint and persistent burden of the public house band was borne up and down, he uttered, in a voice frantic with despair, bitter beyond measure, and superhuman, a frightful cry: 

“Madeleine.”

His heartrending call shot across the great silence of the sky, and sped all around the horizon.

Then, with a tremendous leap, with the bound of a wild animal, he jumped into the river.  The water rushed on, closed over him, and from the place where he had disappeared a series of great circles started, enlarging their brilliant undulations, until they finally reached the other bank.  The two women had heard the noise of the plunge.  Madeleine drew herself up and exclaimed: 

“It is Paul,” a suspicion having arisen in her soul, “he has drowned himself;” and she rushed towards the bank, where Pauline rejoined her.

A clumsy punt, propelled by two men, turned and returned on the spot.  One of the men rowed, the other plunged into the water a great pole and appeared to be looking for something.  Pauline cried: 

“What are you doing?  What is the matter?”

An unknown voice answered: 

“It is a man who has just drowned himself.”

The two ghastly women, squeezing each other tightly, followed the maneuvers of the boat.  The music of La Grenonillere continued to sound in the distance, and appeared with its cadences to accompany the movements of the somber fisherman; and the river which now concealed a corpse, whirled round and round, illuminated.  The search was prolonged.  The horrible suspense made Madeleine shiver all over.  At last, after at least half an hour, one of the men announced: