He had almost become an assassin.  The proof that he was restored to full possession of his faculties was, that a question of criminal law crossed his brain.

“The crime committed,” said he to himself, “should I have been condemned?  Yes.  Was I responsible?  No.  Is crime merely the result of mental alienation?  Was I mad?  Or was I in that peculiar state of mind which usually precedes an illegal attempt?  Who can say?  Why have not all judges passed through an incomprehensible crisis such as mine?  But who would believe me, were I to recount my experience?”

Some days later, he was sufficiently recovered to tell his father all.  The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders, and assured him it was but a reminiscence of his delirium.

The good old man was moved at the story of his son’s luckless wooing, without seeing therein, however, an irreparable misfortune.  He advised him to think of something else, placed at his disposal his entire fortune, and recommended him to marry a stout Poitevine heiress, very gay and healthy, who would bear him some fine children.  Then, as his estate was suffering by his absence, he returned home.  Two months later, the investigating magistrate had resumed his ordinary avocations.  But try as he would, he only went through his duties like a body without a soul.  He felt that something was broken.

Once he ventured to pay a visit to his old friend, the marchioness.  On seeing him, she uttered a cry of terror.  She took him for a spectre, so much was he changed in appearance.

As she dreaded dismal faces, she ever after shut her door to him.

Claire was ill for a week after seeing him.  “How he loved me,” thought she!  “It has almost killed him!  Can Albert love me as much?” She did not dare to answer herself.  She felt a desire to console him, to speak to him, attempt something; but he came no more.

M. Daburon was not, however, a man to give way without a struggle.  He tried, as his father advised him, to distract his thoughts.  He sought for pleasure, and found disgust, but not forgetfulness.  Often he went so far as the threshold of debauchery; but the pure figure of Claire, dressed in white garments, always barred the doors against him.

Then he took refuge in work, as in a sanctuary; condemned himself to the most incessant labour, and forbade himself to think of Claire, as the consumptive forbids himself to meditate upon his malady.

His eagerness, his feverish activity, earned him the reputation of an ambitious man, who would go far; but he cared for nothing in the world.

At length, he found, not rest, but that painless benumbing which commonly follows a great catastrophe.  The convalescence of oblivion was commencing.

These were the events, recalled to M. Daburon’s mind when old Tabaret pronounced the name of Commarin.  He believed them buried under the ashes of time; and behold they reappeared, just the same as those characters traced in sympathetic ink when held before a fire.  In an instant they unrolled themselves before his memory, with the instantaneousness of a dream annihilating time and space.