“Quitter le jour” is an old expression used by French miners to designate the act of going down to the mine. Words of great poetry which contrast with a hellish daily life. “Quitter le jour” is an impossible equation, that of renouncing the world of the living to stay alive. Neither the soul nor the body of the character are saved: one, if it has not already vanished at the time of the descent, is carried away by the fever; the other follows, consumed by the depths.