not a strong person. What had been struggling in me so forcibly was not my own strength; it was simply the reaction from the others. A strong person would know at the very first step what mandate to derive from the power animating him; before destroying he would have built up. When a bird finds its cage open and takes flight, it does not hesitate, it has the idea of space, it spreads its wings, it knows where to fly, and how high.

I know nothing. I am setting out, that's all. Neither before nor behind me is the irresistible urge which is the start of a great career. Nor do I see close by the rising shape of my life. Nor about me is the ringing mirth of faery liberty. Nothing but a little tiredness, a little emptiness in my head, a little emptiness in my heart.... I am not a strong person.

Good-bye, mother, good-bye to your transparent eyes, to your shoulders which will always shrug for the wrong side, good-bye to your tender lying.

You see, I am no longer faint-hearted, because I can walk away from you forever and venture upon a vague future without a glow of eagerness. All I need is something to beckon to me.... There is nothing ahead of me except the quiet artery of a thoroughfare hemmed in by inky houses and the darkness, which melts away at the panes of the street-lamps and makes them dance and quiver below and twinkle like eyes at the top. Liberty has the taste of fog....

BOARDING-HOUSE

Shall I cross this unfriendly threshold covered with a mangy rug? I should so much like to stop walking and go to sleep. Shall I choose this house which exhales the smell of a cellar, this gloomy shelter, these dingy walls? Shall I....

Come on, fate is everywhere. This is the place I must enter.

IV

I have found work....

A fortnight, a hundred hopes, a fortnight.... The unfriendly atmosphere of stiff faces. "The position is filled." Stairs mounted four steps at a time, then descended gravely, catechisms begun with questions that embarrass and so often ending with questions that make you blush. Then one fine day—by what magic?—the position is not filled, and you answer yes to everything required; the sky is clear, you will start to-morrow.

I have not drained to its dregs the joy there is in working at my nondescript job from morning until evening. To work for your bread, to feel dignified and straight. You cannot talk, to be sure, but at least you do not lie, you are in repose, you let the waves of your being pile up, and every evening you return to a docile home, where the silence is always nigh to flowering....

The boarding-house, however, is not hospitable; you never satisfy your hunger, and my narrow room with its threadbare carpet and mouldy ceiling is like a badly kept cage. But it's Sunday morning and I have undertaken to make it inviting.

A handkerchief twisted about my hair, a white blouse and bare arms.... By persisting and rubbing again, by chasing the dust, by trying a place for the books twenty times over, by pushing the chairs about, by scraping away the layers of encrusted filth, I am bound to triumph. To judge of the effect, I stop several times and perch on the tattered arm of the red-flowered armchair; the place looks better already. But to it again!

No pictures, no ornaments. I have taken down the sentimental prints hypocritically concealing the scars of the wall-paper. Nothing but the bare room and the high window with its dim panes.

The bed of a doubtful mahogany burrows into the bashful retreat of the alcove. The wardrobe would wabble if it were not secured by a thick rope tied to the rosette on the front. The rosette is typical of a curious character that the room has for all its dinginess. There was an attempt to decorate with a profusion of flowers. Flowers everywhere, spread broadcast over the walls, cutting off the corners of the wash-boards, and trailing their sallow procession in a border around the top of the walls. They are even woven into the stuff on the back of the armchair, they appear almost effaced in the maroon-colored linoleum, and ravelled out and faded in the cretonne curtains.... In this cemetery, the sweet violets blooming on my table have a sensual, almost insolent splendor; their petals look red.

For all its bareness, my room radiates light; the meagre sunlight shines in through the window and is already transfiguring the place; I feel comfortable in it.

Oftener and oftener I ask myself what is my reason for existence, my true, my sole destiny. Doubtless one must sleep in a room for a long time before encountering the soul that prepares itself there.

I am, I know, like a person who wants to build a big house without having a site or materials, who says nevertheless: "No, not this site, no, not this material." But this is of no importance, I realize. Once you have submitted to the wholesome discipline enjoined by poverty, you receive in return energetic muscles and a patient outlook.

I wait; and no longer having any need to complain or criticize, I wait with a smile. Everything is simpler than one thinks, and everything is easier, and it seems to me that—

Someone is knocking at the door.

"May I come in?"

The landlady, Mme. Noël.

Mme. Noël is more of an imp than a woman. She has the figure, the voice, and the darting roguishness of a slim young thing of twelve.

When I was getting settled the first morning, I suddenly heard her insect-step close by—I had left my door open—and without giving me time to draw back, she besieged me with questions:

"How old do you think I am?"

"I don't know."

"Guess anything."

"Thirty-four ... thirty-three ... thirty."

On looking at her closely a few seconds, it seemed to me she was probably forty.

"Fifty-two, my dear!" To convince me of her age she stuck her finger under a slab of hair waved and dyed red and actually exposed an abundance of fading white hair.

Her face was no bigger than a fist, with cheeks like baked apples. Her shrewd naked eyes pried about. She came farther into the room and perched lightly on one of my rickety pieces of furniture, balancing it with her body. Then she began to unfold the story of her life, rummaging, unpacking, digging it up by huge armfuls: her husband, her lover, and then another, a painter she adored. The first one came back.... Love, adventures.... So it is possible to speak about your love and adventures?

Before leaving me—I was quite dazed; which must have been evident—lowering her voice a little:

"He is so good.... I myself am not crazy about him, but he loves me so...."

"He?"

"The boarding-house—it is not only for what it pays, you understand. It's for the company!"

"The company?"

With the springy elegance of a cat, her tapering elbows breaking the evenness of her outline, Mme. Noël slid on to the bed. The mattress reared up, the coverings billowed, the pillow, struck slantwise, was about to fall. But she needed so little room, and she carefully patted the hollow she made for herself.

"Well, is there nothing you want?... Ah, these young things—a handkerchief round their heads and they still look pretty."

Instinctively I pulled off my handkerchief. I stammered: "To keep off the dust" and—what could I do to make her go?—I smiled awkwardly.

"Oh, by the way, I came near forgetting to tell you. If ... you want to receive in your room ... after all, what of it? You surely have somebody.... It's just between us women. A beautiful girl like you, it would be a shame.... You won't be bashful, will you? To me love is sacred. And you will tell your little secrets to Mme. Noël? I have told you mine. Only of course you will be careful not to make any noise. I say this on account of the Russians in the next room. They used to receive swarms of people up to all hours. The rumpus! I tell you, I put a stop to it. But you, you're different. I liked you from the start."

I had to answer, I was