rents and does not work. He is good and affectionate, and sometimes he
is overcome by attacks of compassion.

Véron and Louise Verte see one another,--and each makes a détour of
avoidance. They are afraid of each other.

Here, also, on the margin of passion, is Monsieur Joseph Bonéas, very
compassionable, in spite of his intellectual superiority. Between the
turned-down brim of his hat and his swollen white kerchief,--thick as a
towel,--a mournful yellow face is stuck.

I pity these questing solitaries who are looking for themselves! I
feel compassion to see those fruitless shadows hovering there, wavering
like ghosts, these poor wayfarers, divided and incomplete.

Where am I? Facing the workmen's flats, whose countless windows stand
sharply out in their huge flat background. It is there that Marie
Tusson lives, whose father, a clerk at Messrs. Gozlan's, like myself,
is manager of the property. I steered to this place instinctively,
without confessing it to myself, brushing people and things without
mingling with them.

Marie is my cousin, and yet I hardly ever see her. We just say
good-day when we meet, and she smiles at me.

I lean against a plane tree and think of Marie. She is tall, fair,
strong and amiable, and she goes modestly clad, like a wide-hipped
Venus; her beautiful lips shine like her eyes.

To know her so near agitates me among the shadows. If she appeared