from him twenty-five years ago—though this girl was even younger, fresher, more of a child.
He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her again to his heart and whisper in her ear: “Good morning, Lison!”
A manservant announced: “Dinner is served, Madame!” and they proceeded to the dining room.
What happened during dinner? What was said to him and what replies did he make? He was in one of those curious dreamlike states bordering on insanity. He looked at the two women, obsessed by an idea, the diseased idea of a madman: “Which is the real one?” Smiling all the time, the mother repeated over and over again: “Do you remember?” But it was the girl’s bright eyes which revealed the past to him. At least twenty times he was going to say: “Do you remember, Lison?” quite forgetting the white-haired woman who was tenderly looking at him.
And yet there were moments when he felt uncertain, when he lost his head completely; he saw that the girl of today was not exactly like the girl of long ago. The other, the former love, had something in her voice, her look, her whole being which he missed, and made an enormous effort to recapture what was escaping him, the something that this resuscitated love did not possess.
The Baroness said: “My dear friend, you have lost your old vivacity,” to which he replied: “I have lost many other things, too!”
But his heart was in a ferment, he felt his old love springing to life again, like a wild beast ready to tear him to pieces.
The young girl chatted away, and he recognised tricks of the voice, familiar phrases used by the mother, which she had taught him, the way of thinking and speaking, the resemblance in mind and manner that comes from living together, these all combined to torment him body and soul. All these memories of the past took possession of him, making a bleeding wound in his awakened passion.
He left early and went for a stroll on the Boulevard. But the young girl’s image followed him, haunting him, crystallising his feelings and inflaming his blood. Separated from the two women, he now saw only one, the young one—the old one back again—and he loved her as he had loved her in the past. He loved her more passionately after the interval of twenty-five years.
He went home to reflect on the strange and terrible thing that had happened and to think over what could be done.
But as, candle in hand, he passed in front of the looking-glass, the big looking-glass in which he had looked at and admired himself before he started, he caught sight of an elderly man with grey hair, and suddenly remembered what he had been like in the old days, the days of little Lise, and he saw himself young and charming again, as in the days when he had been loved. Then, holding the candle nearer, he looked at himself more closely, much as one examines some strange object through a magnifying-glass, tracing the wrinkles and recognising the frightful wreckage that he had never noticed before.
He sat down opposite his reflection, crushed at the sight of his wretched appearance, murmuring: “Finis, Lormerin!”
The Hairpin
I will not record the name either of the country or of the man concerned. It was far, very far from this part of the world, on a fertile and scorching seacoast. All morning we had been following a coast clothed with crops and a blue sea clothed in sunlight. Flowers thrust up their heads quite close to the waves, rippling waves, so gentle, drowsing. It was hot—a relaxing heat, redolent of the rich soil, damp and fruitful: one almost heard the rising of the sap.
I had been told that, in the evening, I could obtain hospitality in the house of a Frenchman, who lived at the end of a headland, in an orange grove. Who was he? I was still in ignorance. He had arrived one morning, ten years ago; he had bought a piece of ground, planted vines, sown seed; he had worked, this man, passionately, furiously. Then, month by month, year by year, increasing his demesne, continually fertilising the lusty and virgin soil, he had in this way amassed a fortune by his unsparing labour.
Yet he went on working, all the time, people said. Up at dawn, going over his fields until night, always on the watch, he seemed to be goaded by a fixed idea, tortured by an insatiable lust for money, which nothing lulls to sleep, and nothing can appease.
Now he seemed to be very rich.
The sun was just setting when I reached his dwelling. This was indeed built at the end of an outthrust cliff, in the midst of orange-trees. It was a large plain-looking house, built foursquare, and overlooking the sea.
As I approached, a man with a big beard appeared in the doorway. Greeting him, I asked him to give me shelter for the night. He held out his hand to me, smiling.
“Come in, sir, and make yourself at home.”
He led the way to a room, put a servant at my disposal, with the perfect assurance and easy good manners of a man of the world; then he left me, saying:
“We will dine as soon as you are quite ready to come down.”
We did indeed dine alone, on a terrace facing the sea. At the beginning of the meal, I spoke to him of this country, so rich, so far from the world, so little known. He smiled, answering indifferently.
“Yes, it is a beautiful country. But no country is attractive that lies so far from the country of one’s heart.”
“You regret France?”
“I regret Paris.”
“Why not go back to it?”
“Oh, I shall go back to it.”
Then, quite naturally, we began to talk of French society, of the boulevards, and people, and things of Paris. He questioned me after the manner of a man who knew all about it, mentioning names, all the
