alks, and makes into
large nosegays.

She liked to speak to him frequently of her continual, unrealized and
unrealizable longing, and he, an old man without hope, was fond of
listening to her, and used to go and sit near the counter to talk to
Mademoiselle Zoe and to discuss the country with her. Then, by degrees
he was seized by a vague desire to go just once and see whether it was
really so pleasant there, as she said, outside the walls of the great
city, and so one morning he said to her: "Do you know where one can get
a good lunch in the neighborhood of Paris?" "Go to the Terrace at
Saint-Germain; it is delightful there!"

He had been there formerly, just when he had got engaged, and so he made
up his mind to go there again, and he chose a Sunday without any special
reason, but merely because people generally do go out on Sundays, even
when they have nothing to do all the week, and so one Sunday morning he
went to Saint-Germain. It was at the beginning of July, on a very bright
and hot day. Sitting by the door of the railway-carriage, he watched the
trees and the strangely built little houses in the outskirts of Paris
fly past. He felt low-spirited, and vexed at having yielded to that new
longing, and at having broken through his usual habits. The view, which
was continually changing, and always the same, wearied him. He was
thirsty; he would have liked to get out at every station and sit down in
the _cafe_ which he saw outside and drink a _bock_ or two, and then take
the first train back to Paris. And then, the journey seemed very long to
him. He used to remain sitting for whole days, as long as he had the
same motionless objects before his eyes, but he found it very trying and
fatiguing to remain sitting while he was being whirled along, and to see
the whole country fly by, while he himself was motionless.

However, he found the Seine interesting, every time he crossed it. Under
the bridge at Chatou he saw some skiffs going at great pace under the
vigorous strokes of the bare-armed oarsmen, and he thought: "There are
some fellows who are certainly enjoying themselves!" And then the train
entered the tunnel just before you get to the station at Saint-Germain,
and soon stopped at the arrival platform, where Parent got out, and
walked slowly, for he already felt tired, towards the _Terrace_, with
his hands behind his back, and when he got to the iron balustrade, he
stopped to look at the distant horizon. The vast p