without shame. I shall live obscurely, absorbed in work and in
trying to forget your existence; do the same yourself. If you think
of the past, you will find, perhaps, that I am hard; yet this
departure is not an egotistic desertion. I am no good to you, and
the repose that you want would shun you hereafter in my presence.
On the contrary, strive for forgetfulness, as I shall. If you
contrive to wipe out of your life the part that is associated with
me, perhaps you will be able to banish the remainder, and to recover
some of the calm of other days. I can no longer remember that I
have loved you, for my position is such that I have not the refuge
of memory; at my age I must remain without a past as without a
future; the consolation of the unfortunate is lost to me with
everything else. I cannot rise out of my sorrow to try to find one
hour when life was sweet to me; those hours, on the contrary, make
me tremble, and I reproach myself for them as if they were a crime.
Thus, whichever way I turn, I find only sadness and sharp regrets;
everything is blighted, dishonored for me."


Standing in the middle of his office he read this hastily written letter
breathlessly. Arrived at the end he looked about him vaguely. His chair
was near his desk; he let himself fall into it and remained there
prostrated, holding the letter in his shaking hand.

"Alone!"

It was an October afternoon, dark and muddy; in the Rue des Saints-Peres,
in front of the houses that hide the Charity Hospital, coupes were
standing, and their long line extended to the Boulevard Saint-Germain,
where the coachmen, having left their seats, talked together like persons