I found myself in the street.

I could not have been more clumsy, more ill-bred, or more unfortunate.  I had come to make an apology and had given further offence.  Just like my luck!  And the daughter, too—­I had hurt her feelings.  Still, she had stood up for me; she had said to her father, “Not every one can be in the Institute,” evidently meaning, “Why are you torturing this poor young man?  He is bashful and ill at ease.  I feel sorry for him.”  Sorry—­yes; no doubt she felt sorry for me at first.  But then I came out with that impertinence about the twenty-seven copies, and by this time she hates me beyond a doubt.  Yes, she hates me.  It is too painful to think of.

Mademoiselle Charnot will probably remain but a stranger to me, a fugitive apparition in my path of life; yet her anger lies heavy upon me, and the thought of those disdainful lips pursues me.

I had rarely been more thoroughly disgusted with myself, and with all about me.  I needed something to divert me, to distract me, to make me forget, and so I set off for home by the longest way, going down the Rue de Beaune to the Seine.

I declare, we get some perfect winter days in Paris!  Just now, the folks who sit indoors believe that the sun is down and have lighted their lamps; but outside, the sky—­a pale, rain-washed blue—­is streaked with broad rays of rose-pink.  It is freezing, and the frost has sprinkled diamonds everywhere, on the trees, the roofs, the parapets, even on the cabmen’s hats, that gather each a sparkling cockade as they pass along through the mist.  The river is running in waves, white-capped here and there.  On the penny steamers no one but the helmsman is visible.  But what a crowd on the Pont de Carrousel!  Fur cuffs and collars pass and repass on the pavements; the roadway trembles beneath the endless line of Batignolles—­Clichy omnibuses and other vehicles.  Every one seems in a hurry.  The pedestrians are brisk, the drivers dexterous.  Two lines of traffic meet, mingle without jostling, divide again into fresh lines and are gone like a column of smoke.  Although slips are common in this crowd, its intelligent agility is all its own.  Every face is ruddy, and almost all are young.  The number of young men, young maidens, young wives, is beyond belief, Where are the aged?  At home, no doubt, by the chimney-corner.  All the city’s youth is out of doors.

Its step is animated; that is the way of it.  It is wideeyed, and in its eyes is the sparkle of life.  The looks of the young are always full of the future; they are sure of life.  Each has settled his position, his career, his dream of commonplace well-being.  They are all alike; and they might all be judges, so serious they appear about it.  They walk in pairs, bolt upright, looking neither right nor left, talking little as they hurry along toward the old Louvre, and are soon swallowed out of sight in the gathering mist, out of which the gaslights glimmer faintly.