feed the dog who had adopted me. After dinner, I used to throw myself
on my bed, overcome by the application and solitude of the day, and
strove thus to abridge by sleep the long, dark hours which yet divided
me from the moment when time commenced for me. These were hours which
young men of my age spend in theatres, public places, or the expensive
amusements of a capital, as I had done before my transformation. I
generally awaked about eleven, and then dressed with the simplicity of
a young man whose good looks and figure set off his plain attire. I was
always neatly shod, besides having white linen and a black coat,
carefully brushed by my own hands, which I buttoned up to the throat,
after the fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle
Ages. A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left
shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, and,
on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which neither aspired
to elegance nor betrayed my distress, admitted of my passing from my
solitude to a drawing-room without either attracting or offending the
eye of the indifferent. I always went on foot; for the price of one
evening's coach-hire would have cost me a day of my life of love. I
walked on the pavement, keeping close along the walls to avoid the
contact of carriage-wheels, and proceeded slowly on tip-toe for fear of
the mud, which in a well-lighted drawing-room would have betrayed the
humble pedestrian. I was in no hurry, for I knew that Julie received
every evening some of her husband's friends, and I preferred waiting
till the last carriage had driven away before I knocked. This reserve
on my part arose not only from the fear of the remarks which might be
made concerning my constant presence in the house of so young and
lovely a woman, but, above all, from my dislike to share with others
her looks and words. It seemed to me that each of those with whom she
was obliged to keep up a conversation robbed me of some part of her
presence or her mind. To see her, to hear her, and not to possess her