Unfortunately, it was not the first time that he had behaved thus, that he had suddenly “dropped” a girl to whom he had sworn undying love, going so far as to produce a loaded revolver, telling her that he would blow out his brains if ever he was mean enough to desert her. He did nevertheless desert her in time, and felt instead of remorse, a sort of rancour against her. It was not the first time that he had behaved thus, it was not to be the last, with the result that the heads of many girls⁠—girls less forgetful of him than he was of them⁠—suffered⁠—as Jupien’s niece’s head continued long afterwards to suffer, still in love with Morel although she despised him⁠—suffered, ready to burst with the shooting of an internal pain because in each of them⁠—like a fragment of a Greek carving⁠—an aspect of Morel’s face, hard as marble and beautiful as an antique sculpture, was embedded in her brain, with his blossoming hair, his fine eyes, his straight nose, forming a protuberance in a cranium not shaped to receive it, upon which no operation was possible. But in the fullness of time these stony fragments end by slipping into a place where they cause no undue discomfort, from which they never stir again; we are no longer conscious of their presence: I mean forgetfulness, or an indifferent memory.