Meanwhile the expatriated Pitou had remained disconsolate. Though the
people at the Hague spoke French, they said foreign things to him in
it. He missed Montmartre--the interests of home. While he waxed
eloquent to customers on the tone of pianos, or the excellence of rival
composers' melodies, he was envying Florozonde in Paris. Florozonde,
whom he had created, obsessed the young man. In the evening he read
about her at Van der Pyl's; on Sundays, when the train carried him to
drink beer at Scheveningen, he read about her in the Kurhaus. And then
the unexpected happened. In this way:

Pitou was discharged.

Few things could have surprised him more, and, to tell the truth, few
things could have troubled him less. "It is better to starve in Paris
than grow fat in Holland," he observed. He jingled his capital in his
trouser-pocket, in fancy savoured his dinner cooking at the Cafe du Bel
Avenir, and sped from the piano shop as if it had been on fire.

The clock pointed to a quarter to six as Nicolas Pitou, composer,
emerged from the gare du Nord, and lightly swinging the valise that
contained his wardrobe, proceeded to the rue des Trois Freres. Never
had it looked dirtier, or sweeter. He threw himself on Tricotrin's
neck; embraced the concierge--which took her breath away, since she was
ill-favoured and most disagreeable; fared sumptuously for one franc
fifty at the Cafe du Bel Avenir--where he narrated adventures abroad
that surpassed de Rougemont's; and went to La Coupole.

And there, jostled by the crowd, the poor fellow looked across the
theatre at the triumphant woman he had invented--and fell in love with