The blank streets stretch out interminably, gray and silent; the shops on either hand are shuttered; in the squares you will find only a dog or a scavenger; theatre bills hang in rags around the kiosks, the wind sweeps their tattered fragments along the asphalt in yesterday’s dust, with here and there a bunch of faded flowers.  The Seine washes around its motionless boats; two great-coated policemen patrol the bank and wake the echoes with their tramp.  The fountains have ceased to play, and their basins are dry.  The air is chilly, and sick with evil odors.  The whole drive is like a bad dream.  Such was my drive from the Gare de Lyon to my rooms.  When I was once at home, installed in my own domains, this unpleasant impression gradually wore off.  There was friendliness in my sticks of furniture.  I examined those silent witnesses, my chair, my table, and my books.  What had happened while I was away?  Apparently nothing important.  The furniture had a light coating of dust, which showed that no one had touched it, not even Madame Menin.  It was funny, but I wished to see Madame Menin.  A sound, and I heard my opposite neighbor getting to work.  He is a hydrographer, and engraves maps for a neighboring publisher.  I never could get up as early as he.  The willow seemed to have made great progress during the summer.  I flung up the window and said “Good-morning!” to the wallflowers, to the old wall of the Carmelites, and the old black tower.  Then the sparrows began.  What o’clock could it be?  They came all together with a rush, chirping, the hungry thieves, wheeling about, skirting the walls in their flight, quick as lightning, borne on their pointed wings.  They had seen the sun—­day had broken!

And almost immediately I heard a cart pass, and a hawker crying: 

“Ground-SEL!  Groundsel for your dickey-birds!”

To think that there are people who get up at that unearthly hour to buy groundsel for their canaries!  I looked to see whether any one had called in my absence; their cards should be on my table.  Two were there:  “Monsieur Lorinet, retired solicitor, town councillor, of Bourbonnoux-les-Bourges, deputy-magistrate”; “Madame Lorinet, nee Poupard.”

I was surprised not to find a third card:  “Berthe Lorinet, of no occupation, anxious to change her name.”  Berthe will be difficult to get rid of.  I presume she didn’t dare to leave a card on a young man, it wouldn’t have been proper.  But I have no doubt she was here.  I scent a trick of my uncle’s, one of those Atlantic cables he takes for spider’s threads and makes his snares of.  The Lorinet family have been here, with the twofold intention of taking news of me to my “dear good uncle,” and discreetly recalling to my forgetful heart the charms of Berthe of the big feet.

“Good-morning, Monsieur Mouillard!”

“Hallo!  Madame Menin!  Good-morning, Madame Menin!”

“So you are back at last, sir!  How brown you have got—­quite sunburnt.  You are quite well, I hope, sir?”