friends!

Rémy pursues his reading with a frank absorption which dominates his whole body. His heavy forehead bulges, his clenched fists form two undefined cubes on the page. Migo (when I look at him I call him Migo, too), rolls his cigarette. This evening he is inclined to be talkative. He rubs up his memory:

"The first day you came to the office what a timid manner you had."

The recollections play upon an irresistible note. Rémy emerges from his corner, his good blue eyes rising to the bait; a vision hung on a thread, persons long faded. And it must be confessed that all three of us let ourselves be captured; the same smile widens our features.

The door-bell rings.... Yes, it rang.

The triple peal sends our heads apart. Rémy rises, hostile and resigned. He is always the one to open the door.

Waiting in every circumstance, even when nothing is at stake, is painful. The spirit recoils and contracts, and space is left for thoughts of an inevitable misfortune and for the twinkling vision of the things which disappear. In a single instant life can completely change its aspect....

A sweeping draught. It brings in the voice of a young man. I want to leave. The two Loiseaus hover about him. "What a surprise! How nice!" They rub their hands. "Come in and sit down!"

It is too late to leave; the stranger is already bowing to me, and the mingled exclamations pretty well hide my stammering. I am so ashamed of myself for stammering.

The newcomer seats himself near the fire on the little black chair to the right of Migo. He wants the lamp to stay unlighted. But it is no longer the same. Our silence has been routed, and the languor, and the warmth also....

I am in a good position to observe him. How old? Thirty-four, thirty-five perhaps. Is he really handsome? Hard to say. He is too dark. His face is strongly chiseled, his cheeks sunken, his forehead hard as a hammer. The long line of his jaw lends refinement to his countenance, which is lit by eyes fearlessly open, in which the gray, in spots, seems steeped in phosphorous. His gestures are repressed and rather commanding. He talks little, but when he does talk his fire contrasts with the rarity of his words, gives them value, makes them seem to issue all alive from the bowels of the earth, while he sits with his body upright, as if at a distance, the flicker from the hearth enamelling, then removing, the burnished black of his hair ... I bethink myself: we have not yet had tea. I hope it will be just right this evening.

One by one I take out of their hiding-place the cups with the gold lines, the lovely ones, the only embroidered tea-cloth, the teapot with the golden spout, and the flowers, wan in the night. I set the luxury of these things on the table. With my head shrouded in the light-dark and my shoulders swathed in a fleece of shadow, how good it is to be among them, screened by my movements, not sitting but standing so that I can look upon the happy trio. Him especially. For alongside of him, who hardly speaks, the two Loiseaus, beaming and voluble, seem suddenly tame and stunted.

A pleasant sight, quite new to me, this group of three faces on which a common childhood springs to life, fond joys shared in the past, and names that are no more. They have almost forgotten that a woman is present. This reassures me.

But if he, when he raises his eyes and sees me, is going to remember I am a woman and turn to me too civilly and kindle the usual warfare under the bland honey of the customary phrases! No ... not he ... not this man. He is so frank and so fine with his two friends; what he says is so right, and he speaks so directly, without straining for effect. No, not he.

I offer each of them a trembling cup which they accept without trembling. Then I quickly withdraw again to the protecting shadow where my place is hollowed out, to listen to this amazing presence which my heart scans.

He has spoken to me.

He has spoken to me as never yet a man has spoken: without trying to see or please me, without any ulterior thoughts, just as he speaks to the two Loiseaus, probably just as he speaks to himself when alone. It does happen, then, that from the depths of simple obscurity, unexpectedly, one hears real words, real naked words from a man?

I answer in the same good faith, I no longer feel any fear or the need for self-defence. I feel a delight which helps me. And the perfume of the words that rises from the four of us—it is upon him I bestow it.

From the embers comes a live heat which settles on your cheekbones; your neck unconsciously stretches towards the red point where the conversation, which also crackles and sparkles, rests its centre. This stranger close to me seems like a king leaning over the edge of a fountain; the light carves his smile and courts that familiar brow.... Is he still a stranger?

But suddenly, what time is it? Twenty past eleven! Time to go. Yes, yes, I must go.

At the shock which brings me to my feet the whole group breaks up. They discuss who is to see me home, and I have to refuse three offers at the same time.

Give me your brotherly hands, I want to go home by myself. And you, turn upon me those eyes so different from other men's eyes.

As I go down the stairs the fidgety advice repeated a hundred times, which Rémy hurls at me over the banisters every Friday, descends upon my head. "Don't walk so fast, look where you're going." The last scraps of warning roll like billiard balls. Rémy, old friend, have no fear, go in again. I am carrying away an immense wonder. It is hurrying me along in its round. I want to dance, to cry....

Rémy's voice is cut off abruptly, along with the cone of light in which the steps reeled.

On the street ... a narrow, formidable street, full of a palpable, limpid night.

Whither goes the volatile sky pursued by the pale flock of clouds? Whither go those grand transports which seize and overwhelm you? Here below there is a man honest in his voice, straightforward in his look, a brotherly man. And I have met him!

VII

For the first time I have spoken about myself to a living being. Not so much in words or details or episodes as in the profound desire to open up the depths of my soul and finally give a true view of it.

To talk of oneself! That enigmatic, incomplete, elusive, warm thing, tossed by conflicting currents, adding to itself constantly, this thing that one is. To say what it is!... To tell of it with modest lips, with lids raised, with voice sure, with silence....

I should never have believed in the possibility of such a boon. And in the first minutes of our being together on Sunday, I still did not know of the possibility.

Two weeks after the Friday at the Loiseaus', I was stamping my feet with the cold in the queue of people waiting at the little door of the theatre to buy the two-franc seats. I happened to turn and was mechanically studying the faces—there he stood eight or nine persons away....

My delighted gaze rested upon him so hard that his head turned compliantly. He saw me, his face lighted up. The crowd was interested, the women stared with their unabashed curiosity, the men joked, but not one of them, you may be sure, was willing to budge. Through the interstices between the hats, our cheeks glowing with the wind, we exchanged greetings, and I divined rather than heard that he wanted to see me. It was at that moment that I felt as if I were flinging myself overboard.

"Next Sunday at my house if you like?"

A strange current was carrying me away. Certain prejudices must be deep-rooted. What was so extraordinary about receiving him in my room? The fact that I took the initiative of inviting him seemed to be trumpeted to the four quarters of the globe; and when his answer came calm and natural, I couldn't continue to face him; I had to hide my burning ears up against the old gentleman in the greatcoat, who fastened his mocking persistent