es-people or workmen, and he experienced a sickening sensation of
disgust, a longing to leave the place and live like well-to-do people in
a clean dwelling, as he ascended the stairs, lighting himself with wax
matches on his way up the dirty steps, littered with bits of paper,
cigarette ends, and scraps of kitchen refuse. A stagnant stench of
cooking, cesspools and humanity, a close smell of dirt and old walls,
which no rush of air could have driven out of the building, filled it
from top to bottom.

The young fellow's room, on the fifth floor, looked into a kind of
abyss, the huge cutting of the Western Railway just above the outlet by
the tunnel of the Batignolles station. Duroy opened his window and
leaned against the rusty iron cross-bar.

Below him, at the bottom of the dark hole, three motionless red lights
resembled the eyes of huge wild animals, and further on a glimpse could
be caught of others, and others again still further. Every moment
whistles, prolonged or brief, pierced the silence of the night, some
near at hand, others scarcely discernible, coming from a distance from
the direction of Asnieres. Their modulations were akin to those of the
human voice. One of them came nearer and nearer, with its plaintive
appeal growing louder and louder every moment, and soon a big yellow
light appeared advancing with a loud noise, and Duroy watched the
string of railway carriages swallowed up by the tunnel.

Then he said to himself: "Come, let's go to work."

He placed his light upon the table, but at the moment of commencing he
found that he had only a quire of letter paper in the place. More the
pity, but he would make use of it by opening out each sheet to its full
extent. He dipped his pen in ink, and wrote at the head of the page, in
his best hand, "Recollections of a Chasseur d'Afrique."

Then he tried to frame the opening sentence. He remained with his head
on his hands and his eyes fixed on the white sheet spread out before
him. What should he say? He could no longer recall anything of what he
had been relating a little while back; not an anecdote, not a fact,
nothing.

All at once the thought struck him: "I must begin with my departure."

And he wrote: "It was in 1874, about the middle of May, when France, in
her exhaustion, was reposing after the catastrophe of the terrible
year."

He stopped short, not knowing how to lead up to what should follow--his
embarkation, his voyage, his first impressions.