“But she! how I loved her!  How beautiful, graceful and young she was!  She was youth, elegance, freshness itself!  Never before had I felt so strongly what a pretty, distinguished, delicate, charming, graceful being woman is.  Never before had I appreciated the seductive beauty to be found in the curve of a cheek, the movement of a lip, the pinkness of an ear, the shape of that foolish organ called the nose.

“This lasted three months; then I left for America, overwhelmed with sadness.  But her memory remained in me, persistent, triumphant.  From far away I was as much hers as I had been when she was near me.  Years passed by, and I did not forget her.  The charming image of her person was ever before my eyes and in my heart.  And my love remained true to her, a quiet tenderness now, something like the beloved memory of the most beautiful and the most enchanting thing I had ever met in my life.

“Twelve years are not much in a lifetime!  One does not feel them slip by.  The years follow each other gently and quickly, slowly yet rapidly, each one is long and yet so soon over!  They add up so rapidly, they leave so few traces behind them, they disappear so completely, that, when one turns round to look back over bygone years, one sees nothing and yet one does not understand how one happens to be so old.  It seemed to me, really, that hardly a few months separated me from that charming season on the sands of Etretat.

“Last spring I went to dine with some friends at Maisons-Laffitte.

“Just as the train was leaving, a big, fat lady, escorted by four little girls, got into my car.  I hardly looked at this mother hen, very big, very round, with a face as full as the moon framed in an enormous, beribboned hat.

“She was puffing, out of breath from having been forced to walk quickly.  The children began to chatter.  I unfolded my paper and began to read.

“We had just passed Asnieres, when my neighbor suddenly turned to me and said: 

“‘Excuse me, sir, but are you not Monsieur Garnier?’

“‘Yes, madame.’

“Then she began to laugh, the pleased laugh of a good woman; and yet it was sad.

“‘You do not seem to recognize me.’

“I hesitated.  It seemed to me that I had seen that face somewhere; but where? when?  I answered: 

“’Yes—­and no.  I certainly know you, and yet I cannot recall your name.’

“She blushed a little: 

“‘Madame Julie Lefevre.’

“Never had I received such a shock.  In a second it seemed to me as though it were all over with me!  I felt that a veil had been torn from my eyes and that I was going to make a horrible and heartrending discovery.

“So that was she!  That big, fat, common woman, she!  She had become the mother of these four girls since I had last her.  And these little beings surprised me as much as their mother.  They were part of her; they were big girls, and already had a place in life.  Whereas she no longer counted, she, that marvel of dainty and charming gracefulness.  It seemed to me that I had seen her but yesterday, and this is how I found her again!  Was it possible?  A poignant grief seized my heart; and also a revolt against nature herself, an unreasoning indignation against this brutal, infarious act of destruction.