The ancient hut of a fisherman is outlined on the grassy slope.  Below it, crowding reeds rustle in the current; and where they are more sparse they fashion concentric orbs upon the gleaming, fleeing water.  The landscape has something exotic or antique about it.  You are no matter where in the world or among the centuries.  You are on some corner of the eternal earth, where men and women are drawing near to each other, and cling together while they wrap themselves in mystery.

* * * * * *

Dreamily I ascend again towards the sounds and the swarming of the town.  There, the Sunday evening rendezvous,—­the prime concern of the men,—­is less discreet.  Desire displays itself more crudely on the pavements.  Voices chatter and laughter dissolves, even through closed doors; there are shouts and songs.

Up there one sees clearly.  Faces are discovered by the harsh light of the gas jets and its reflection from plate-glass shop windows.  Antonia goes by, surrounded by men, who bend forward and look at her with desire amid their clamor of conversation.  She saw me, and a little sound of appeal comes from her across the escort that presses upon her.  But I turn aside and let her go by.

When she and her harness of men have disappeared, I smell in their wake the odor of Petrolus.  He is lamp-man at the factory.  Yellow, dirty, cadaverous, red-eyed, he smells rancid, and was, perhaps, nurtured on paraffin.  He is some one washed away.  You do not see him, so much as smell him.

Other women are there.  Many a Sunday have I, too, joined in all that love-making.

* * * * * *

Among these beings who chat and take hold of each other, an isolated woman stands like a post, and makes an empty space around her.

It is Louise Verte.  She is fearfully ugly, and she was too virtuous formerly, at a time when, so they say, she need not have been.  She regrets this, and relates it without shame, in order to be revenged on virtue.  She would like to have a lover, but no one wants her, because of her bony face and her scraped appearance; from a sort of eczema.  Children make sport of her, knowing her needs; for the disclosures of their elders have left a stain on them.  A five-year-old girl points her tiny finger at Louise and twitters, “She wants a man.”

In the Place is Veron, going about aimlessly, like a dead leaf—­Veron, who revolves, when he may, round Antonia.  An ungainly man, whose tiny head leans to the right and wears a colorless smile.  He lives on a few rents and does not work.  He is good and affectionate, and sometimes he is overcome by attacks of compassion.

Veron and Louise Verte see one another,—­and each makes a detour of avoidance.  They are afraid of each other.

Here, also, on the margin of passion, is Monsieur Joseph Boneas, very compassionable, in spite of his intellectual superiority.  Between the turned-down brim of his hat and his swollen white kerchief,—­thick as a towel,—­a mournful yellow face is stuck.