assing near
him, speaking to him and calling to him. He felt as though he were
enveloped in darkness by something disagreeable.

He sat down again on a bench. The carriages were still rolling by. He
thought: "I should have done better not to come here; I feel all upset."
He began to think of all this venal or passionate love, of all these
kisses, sold or given, which were passing by it front of him. Love! He
scarcely knew it. In his lifetime he had only known two or three women,
his means forcing him to live a quiet life, and he looked back at the
life which he had led, so different from everybody else, so dreary, so
mournful, so empty.

Some people are really unfortunate. And suddenly, as though a veil had
been torn from his eyes, he perceived the infinite misery, the monotony
of his existence: the past, present and future misery; his last day
similar to his first one, with nothing before him, behind him or about
him, nothing in his heart or any place.

The stream of carriages was still going by. In the rapid passage of the
open carriage he still saw the two silent, loving creatures. It seemed
to him that the whole of humanity was flowing on before him, intoxicated
with joy, pleasure and happiness. He alone was looking on. To-morrow he
would again be alone, always alone, more so than any one else. He stood
up, took a few steps, and suddenly he felt as tired as though he had
taken a long journey on foot, and he sat down on the next bench.

What was he waiting for? What was he hoping for? Nothing. He was
thinking of how pleasant it must be in old age to return home and find
the little children. It is pleasant to grow old when one is surrounded
by those beings who owe their life to you, who love you, who caress you,
who tell you charming and foolish little things which warm your heart
and console you for everything.

And, thinking of his empty room, clean and sad, where no one but himself
ever entered, a feeling of distress filled his soul; and the place
seemed to him more mournful even than his little office. Nobody ever
came there; no one ever spoke in it. It was dead, silent, without the
echo of a human voice. It seems as though walls retain something of the
people who live within them, something of their manner, face and voice.
The very houses inhabited by happy families are gayer than the dwellings
of the unhappy. His room was as barren of memories as his life. And the
thought of returning to this place, all alo