near the Kiosk.
It is ten past eight. I go out. The passage, the court,--by night all
these familiar things surround me even while they hide themselves. A
vague light still hovers in the sky. Crillon's prismatic shop gleams
like a garnet in the bosom of the night, behind the riotous disorder of
his buckets. There I can see Crillon,--he never seems to stop,--filing
something, examining his work close to a candle which flutters like a
butterfly ensnared, and then, reaching for the glue-pot which steams on
a little stove. One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless
face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his
ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair.
He coughs, and the window-panes vibrate.

In the street, shadow and silence. In the distance are venturing
shapes, people emerging or entering, and some light echoing sounds.
Almost at once, on the corner, I see Monsieur Joseph Boneas vanishing,
stiff as a ramrod. I recognized the thick white kerchief, which
consolidates the boils on his neck. As I pass the hairdresser's door
it opens, just as it did a little while ago, and his agreeable voice
says, "That's all there is to it, in business." "Absolutely," replies
a man who is leaving. In the oven of the street one can see only his
littleness--he must be a considerable personage, all the same.
Monsieur Pocard is always applying himself to business and thinking of
great schemes. A little farther, in the depths of a cavity, stoppered
by an iron-grilled window, I divine the presence of old Eudo, the bird
of ill omen, the strange old man who coughs, and has a bad eye, and
whines continually. Even indoors he must wear his mournful cloak and
the lamp-shade of his hood. People call him a spy, and not without
reason.

Here is the Kiosk. It is waiting quite alone, with its point in the
darkness. Antonia has not come, for she would have waited for me. I
am impatient first, and then relieved. A good riddance.

No doubt Antonia is still tempting when she is present. There is a
reddish fever in her eyes, and her slenderness sets you on fire. But I
am hardly in harmony with the Italian. She is particularly engrossed
in her private affairs, with which I am not concerned. Big Victorine,
always ready, is worth a hundred of her; or Madame Lacaille, the
pensively vicious; though I am equally satiated of her, too. Truth to
tell, I plunge unreflectingly into a h