But she could not persuade him to tell her about his little excursion,
although she wanted very much to hear all about it, and for the first
time in his life he got thoroughly drunk that night, and had to be
carried home.




THE FATHER


I

As he lived at Batignolles and was a clerk in the Public Education
Office, he took the omnibus every morning, when he went to the center of
Paris, sitting opposite a girl with whom he fell in love.

She went to the shop where she was employed, at the same time every day.
She was a little brunette, one of those dark girls whose eyes are so
dark that they look like spots, and whose complexion has a look like
ivory. He always saw her coming at the corner of the same street, and
she generally had to run to catch the heavy vehicle, and sprang upon the
steps before the horses had quite stopped. Then she got inside, rather
out of breath, and sitting down, she looked round her.

The first time that he saw her, François Tessier felt that her face
pleased him extremely. One sometimes meets one of those women whom one
longs to clasp madly in one's arms immediately, without even knowing
her. That girl answered to his inward desires, to his secret hopes, to
that sort of ideal of love which one cherishes in the depths of the