“Well, well,” he thought, “not a soul will feel a sincere regret for me.”

His mind sought through all the people he knew or had known, and among the faces which crossed his memory he saw that of the girl at the tavern who had led him to doubt his mother.

He hesitated, having still an instinctive grudge against her, then suddenly reflected on the other hand:  “After all, she was right.”  And he looked about him to find the turning.

The beer-shop, as it happened, was full of people, and also full of smoke.  The customers, tradesmen, and labourers, for it was a holiday, were shouting, calling, laughing, and the master himself was waiting on them, running from table to table, carrying away empty glasses and returning them crowned with froth.

When Pierre had found a seat not far from the desk he waited, hoping that the girl would see him and recognise him.  But she passed him again and again as she went to and fro, pattering her feet under her skirts with a smart little strut.  At last he rapped a coin on the table, and she hurried up.

“What will you take, sir?”

She did not look at him; her mind was absorbed in calculations of the liquor she had served.

“Well,” said he, “this is a pretty way of greeting a friend.”

She fixed her eyes on his face.  “Ah!” said she hurriedly.  “Is it you?  You are pretty well?  But I have not a minute to-day.  A bock did you wish for?”

“Yes, a bock!”

When she brought it he said: 

“I have come to say good-bye.  I am going away.”

And she replied indifferently: 

“Indeed.  Where are you going?”

“To America.”

“A very find country, they say.”

And that was all!

Really, he was very ill-advised to address her on such a busy day; there were too many people in the cafe.

Pierre went down to the sea.  As he reached the jetty he descried the Pearl; his father and Beausire were coming in.  Papagris was pulling, and the two men, seated in the stern, smoked their pipes with a look of perfect happiness.  As they went past the doctor said to himself:  “Blessed are the simple-minded!” And he sat down on one of the benches on the breakwater, to try to lull himself in animal drowsiness.

When he went home in the evening his mother said, without daring to lift her eyes to his face: 

“You will want a heap of things to take with you.  I have ordered your under-linen, and I went into the tailor’s shop about cloth clothes; but is there nothing else you need—­things which I, perhaps, know nothing about?”

His lips parted to say, “No, nothing.”  But he reflected that he must accept the means of getting a decent outfit, and he replied in a very calm voice:  “I hardly know myself, yet.  I will make inquiries at the office.”

He inquired, and they gave him a list of indispensable necessaries.  His mother, as she took it from his hand, looked up at him for the first time for very long, and in the depths of her eyes there was the humble expression, gentle, sad, and beseeching, of a dog that has been beaten and begs forgiveness.