it is fortune! I must write to father."
From time to time he wrote to his father, and the letter always brought
happiness to the little Norman inn by the roadside, at the summit of the
slope overlooking Rouen and the broad valley of the Seine. From time to
time, too, he received a blue envelope, addressed in a large, shaky
hand, and read the same unvarying lines at the beginning of the paternal
epistle. "My Dear Son: This leaves your mother and myself in good
health. There is not much news here. I must tell you, however," etc. In
his heart he retained a feeling of interest for the village matters, for
the news of the neighbours, and the condition of the crops.

He repeated to himself, as he tied his white tie before his little
looking-glass: "I must write to father to-morrow. Wouldn't the old
fellow be staggered if he could see me this evening in the house I am
going to? By Jove! I am going to have such a dinner as he never tasted."
And he suddenly saw the dark kitchen behind the empty _cafe_; the copper
stewpans casting their yellow reflections on the wall; the cat on the
hearth, with her nose to the fire, in sphinx-like attitude; the wooden
table, greasy with time and spilt liquids, a soup tureen smoking upon
it, and a lighted candle between two plates. He saw them, too--his
father and mother, two slow-moving peasants, eating their soup. He knew
the smallest wrinkles on their old faces, the slightest movements of
their arms and heads. He knew even what they talked about every evening
as they sat at supper. He thought, too: "I must really go and see them;"
but his toilet being ended, he blew out his light and went downstairs.

As he passed along the outer boulevard girls accosted him from time to
time. He replied, as he pulled away his arm: "Go to the devil!" with a
violent disdain, as though they had insulted him. What did they take him
for? Could not these hussies tell what a man was? The sensation of his
dress coat, put on in order to go to dinner with such well-known and
important people, inspired him with the sentiment of a new
impersonality--the sense of having become another man, a man in society,
genuine society.

He entered the ante-room, lit by tall bronze candelabra, with
confidence, and handed in easy fashion his cane and overcoat to two
valets who approached. All the drawing-rooms were lit up. Madame Walter
received her guests in the second, the largest. She welcomed him with a
charming smile, and he sho