833,
the rare passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on
thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every
day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l'Homme Arme,
on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, passed in front
of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and,
on arriving at the Rue de l'Echarpe, turned to the left, and entered the
Rue Saint-Louis.

There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which
seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no
other than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he
approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort
of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated
and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though
he were talking to some one whom he did not see, he smiled vaguely and
advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that, while desirous
of reaching his destination, he feared the moment when he should be
close at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that
street which appeared to attract him his pace slackened, to such a
degree that, at times, one might have thought that he was no longer
advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his
eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole.
Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last; he
reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he halted, he trembled, he
thrust his head with a sort of melancholy timidity round the corner of
the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic
look something which resembled the dazzling light of the impossible,
and the reflection from a paradise that was closed to him. Then a tear,
which had slowly gathered in the corner of his lids, and had become
large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at
his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter flavor. Thus he remained for
several minutes as though made of stone, then he returned by the same
road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his
glance died out.

Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the
Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis;
sometimes a little fur