had better have stopped here. For
the future, I shall not stir out again."

But she could not persuade him to tell her about his little excursion,
although she wanted very much to hear all about it, and for the first
time in his life he got thoroughly drunk that night, and had to be
carried home.

THE FATHER

I

As he lived at Batignolles and was a clerk in the Public Education
Office, he took the omnibus every morning, when he went to the center of
Paris, sitting opposite a girl with whom he fell in love.

She went to the shop where she was employed, at the same time every day.
She was a little brunette, one of those dark girls whose eyes are so
dark that they look like spots, and whose complexion has a look like
ivory. He always saw her coming at the corner of the same street, and
she generally had to run to catch the heavy vehicle, and sprang upon the
steps before the horses had quite stopped. Then she got inside, rather
out of breath, and sitting down, she looked round her.

The first time that he saw her, Francois Tessier felt that her face
pleased him extremely. One sometimes meets one of those women whom one
longs to clasp madly in one's arms immediately, without even knowing
her. That girl answered to his inward desires, to his secret hopes, to
that sort of ideal of love which one cherishes in the depths of the
heart, without knowing it.

He looked at her intently, in spite of himself, and she grew embarrassed
at his looks and blushed. He saw it and tried to turn away his eyes; but
he involuntarily fixed them upon her again every moment, although he
tried to look in another direction, and in a few days they knew each
other without having spoken. He gave up his place to her when the
omnibus was full, and got outside, though he was very sorry to do it. By
this time, she had got so far as to greet him with a little smile; and
although she always dropped her eyes under his looks, which she felt
were too ardent, yet she did not appear offended at being looked at in
such a manner.

They ended by speaking. A kind of rapid intimacy had become established
between them, a daily intimacy of half an hour, and that was certainly
one of the most charming half hours in his life, to him. He thought of
her all the rest of the time, saw her continually during the long office
hours, for he was haunted and bewitched by that floating and yet
tenacious recollection which the image of a beloved woman leaves in us,