The voluptuousness of his grief was, however, incomplete, for he had no

one near him to share it, and he paid visits to Madame Lefrancois to be

able to speak of her.

But the landlady only listened with half an ear, having troubles

like himself. For Lheureux had at last established the "Favorites du

Commerce," and Hivert, who enjoyed a great reputation for doing errands,

insisted on a rise of wages, and was threatening to go over "to the

opposition shop."

One day when he had gone to the market at Argueil to sell his horse--his

last resource--he met Rodolphe.

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They both turned pale when they caught sight of one another. Rodolphe,

who had only sent his card, first stammered some apologies, then grew

bolder, and even pushed his assurance (it was in the month of August and

very hot) to the length of inviting him to have a bottle of beer at the

public-house.

Leaning on the table opposite him, he chewed his cigar as he talked, and

Charles was lost in reverie at this face that she had loved. He seemed

to see again something of her in it. It was a marvel to him. He would

have liked to have been this man.

The other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, filling out

with banal phrases all the gaps where an allusion might slip in. Charles

was not listening to him; Rodolphe noticed it, and he followed the

succession of memories that crossed his face. This gradually grew

redder; the nostrils throbbed fast, the lips quivered. There was at

last a moment when Charles, full of a sombre fury, fixed his eyes on

Rodolphe, who, in something of fear, stopped talking. But soon the same

look of weary lassitude came back to his face.

"I don't blame you," he said.

Rodolphe was dumb. And Charles, his head in his hands, went on in a

broken voice, and with the resigned accent of infinite sorrow-"No, I don't blame you now."

He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever made-"It is the fault of fatality!"

Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the remark very offhand

from a man in his position, comic even, and a little mean.

The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat in the arbour. Rays

of light were straying through the trellis, the vine leaves threw their

shadows on the sand, the jasmines perfumed the air, the heavens were

blue, Spanish flies buzzed round the lilies in bloom, and Charles was

suffocating like a youth beneath the vague love influences that filled

his aching heart.




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