Julien de Buxieres alone could not share the general hilarity. The
uproar caused by this simple joke did not even chase the frown from his
brow. He was provoked at not being able to bring himself within the
diapason of this somewhat vulgar gayety: he was aware that his melancholy
countenance, his black clothes, his want of sympathy jarred unpleasantly
on the other jovial guests. He did not intend any longer to play the
part of a killjoy. Without saying anything to Claudet, therefore, he
waited until the huntsmen had scattered in the brushwood, and then,
diving into a trench, in an opposite direction, he gave them all the
slip, and turned in the direction of Planche-au-Vacher.

As he walked slowly, treading under foot the dry frosty leaves, he
reflected how the monotonous crackling of this foliage, once so full of
life, now withered and rendered brittle by the frost, seemed to represent
his own deterioration of feeling. It was a sad and suitable
accompaniment of his own gloomy thoughts.

He was deeply mortified at the sorry figure he had presented at the
breakfast-table. He acknowledged sorrowfully to himself that, at twenty-
eight years of age, he was less young and less really alive than all
these country squires, although all, except Claudet, had passed their
fortieth year. Having missed his season of childhood, was he also doomed
to have no youth? Others found delight in the most ordinary amusements,
why, to him, did life seem so insipid and colorless?

Why was he so unfortunately constituted that all human joys lost their
sweetness as soon as he opened his heart to them? Nothing made any
powerful impression on him; everything that happened seemed to be a
perpetual reiteration, a song sung for the hundredth time, a story a