Chap­ter III begins with a curi­ous tone, as the sur­re­al rem­nants of a dream linger in the mind of a man who oth­er­wise lives in the realm of log­ic and lit­er­a­ture. What appears to be a whim­si­cal figment—a fairy tale car­ried into wakefulness—becomes the open­ing thread of some­thing unex­pect­ed­ly mean­ing­ful. Sylvestre Bon­nard, though a man of let­ters and ratio­nal thought, finds joy in recount­ing this strange dream to Madame de Gabry. Her light­heart­ed response doesn’t dis­miss it, but embraces the idea that cre­ativ­i­ty can often bloom where con­trol loosens its grip. Their exchange car­ries a deep­er sentiment—an unspo­ken appre­ci­a­tion for imag­i­na­tion that tran­scends age. Madame de Gabry’s encour­age­ment, sub­tly woven with warmth and under­stand­ing, brings a flick­er of youth­ful won­der into Bonnard’s oth­er­wise order­ly exis­tence. Through this inter­ac­tion, we glimpse not just the charm of friend­ship but the awak­en­ing of some­thing beyond scholarship—perhaps the stir­rings of unex­pect­ed pur­pose.

The days that fol­low move with qui­et dili­gence. Bon­nard devotes him­self to exam­in­ing the man­u­scripts of the Lusance library, treat­ing each page with the rev­er­ence of a his­to­ri­an who sees time not in dates, but in ink and tex­ture. Yet, real­i­ty press­es gen­tly against his qui­et task. He becomes aware of the finan­cial strain bur­den­ing the Gabry house­hold, par­tic­u­lar­ly Mon­sieur Honore’s estate. In an attempt to assist, Bon­nard seeks advice on arrang­ing a sale for the library’s con­tents, expos­ing his inex­pe­ri­ence in the eco­nom­ic realm. Though learned in texts, he is dis­armed by com­merce, remind­ing us that intel­lect doesn’t always trans­late to prac­ti­cal skill. Amid this, Bon­nard’s wanderings—through old church­es and under the open skies—offer him solace, a momen­tary escape from the pres­sure of stew­ard­ship. These sim­ple plea­sures recon­nect him with the rhythm of dai­ly life beyond books, where mean­ing is found not only in preser­va­tion but in par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The true sur­prise of the chap­ter arrives upon his return, when he encoun­ters some­thing entire­ly unex­pect­ed: a small stat­ue rest­ing on a pier-table. At first, con­fu­sion sets in. The stat­uette appears to have leapt straight from his dream—every detail remem­bered, now shaped in wax. The mys­tery unrav­els as he learns that Jeanne, a qui­et orphan with an eye for detail, craft­ed the fig­ure. This rev­e­la­tion is more than a coincidence—it feels fat­ed. Jeanne had lis­tened close­ly to his sto­ry, absorb­ing not just the plot but its emo­tion­al under­tone, then expressed it through her art. The moment marks a shift in Bon­nard. The dream becomes more than a night­time curiosity—it becomes a bridge between imag­i­na­tion and real con­nec­tion.

Jeanne’s artis­tic gift opens a new conversation—one that revolves around the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sur­vival through cre­ativ­i­ty. Madame de Gabry pos­es a sin­cere ques­tion: could this tal­ent be cul­ti­vat­ed to offer Jeanne a future? Bon­nard doesn’t answer imme­di­ate­ly, but the idea lingers in his thoughts. The recog­ni­tion of Jeanne’s skill, paired with her qui­et dig­ni­ty, res­onates with him deeply. Her pres­ence adds a new dimen­sion to his struc­tured world. Where once man­u­scripts and mar­gin­a­lia filled his focus, now a child’s expres­sion of won­der asks him to con­sid­er the liv­ing sto­ries behind each life. The stat­ue isn’t mere­ly an object—it is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of being heard and val­ued.

As this chap­ter unfolds, the nar­ra­tive sub­tly reshapes itself. What began with a schol­ar­ly task now car­ries the weight of guardian­ship, inspi­ra­tion, and awak­en­ing. Bon­nard, in his soft-spo­ken way, begins to shift. The pur­suit of knowl­edge gives way to the care of some­one who might one day craft knowl­edge of her own. The ques­tion is no longer just how to pre­serve ancient texts, but how to nur­ture the voic­es of the future. Jeanne’s intro­duc­tion isn’t just a plot development—it is a mean­ing­ful inter­sec­tion of age and youth, of mem­o­ry and poten­tial. Through her, Bon­nard is pulled gen­tly into the present moment, asked not to only remem­ber his­to­ry, but to become part of a new one being made.

He does not imme­di­ate­ly aban­don his role as a man of study. Yet now, his atten­tion is divid­ed in the most human way. Between the inked wis­dom of cen­turies and the fresh spark of a young creator’s mind, he must learn how to walk in both worlds. The library remains his sanc­tu­ary, but now it echoes with soft­er foot­steps and the hum of promise. In Jeanne’s mod­est yet imag­i­na­tive ges­ture, Bon­nard finds him­self not only hon­ored but chal­lenged. Her stat­ue becomes a symbol—one that sug­gests new sto­ries can be writ­ten even with­in old walls. And per­haps, for the first time in many years, Bon­nard doesn’t just curate his­to­ry. He helps shape it, one small act of care at a time.