mast that bore the dazzling globe.
Other lights on the broad lawns, scattered among the trees, shed their
cold and powerful rays into the foliage and on the grass, animating this
great city garden with a pale life.

Bertin, with hands behind his back, paced the sidewalk, thinking of his
walk with Annette in this same park when he had recognized in her the
voice of her mother.

He let himself fall upon a bench, and, breathing in the cool freshness
of the dewy lawns, he felt himself assailed by all the passionate
expectancy that transforms the soul of youth into the incoherent canvas
of an unfinished romance of love. Long ago he had known such evenings,
those evenings of errant fancy, when he had allowed his caprice to roam
through imaginary adventures, and he was astonished to feel a return of
sensations that did not now belong to his age.

But, like the persistent note in the Schubert melody, the thought of
Annette, the vision of her face bent beside the lamp, and the strange
suspicion of the Countess, recurred to him at every instant. He
continued, in spite of himself, to occupy his heart with this question,
to sound the impenetrable depths where human feelings germinate
before being born. This obstinate research agitated him; this constant
preoccupation regarding the young girl seemed to open to his soul the
way to tender reveries. He could not drive her from his mind; he bore
within himself a sort of evocation of her image, as once he had borne
the image of the Countess after she had left him; he often had the
strange sensation of her presence in the studio.

Suddenly, impatient at being dominated by a memory, he arose, muttering:
"Any was stupid to say that to me. Now she will make me think of the
little one!"

He went home, disturbed about himself. After he had gone to bed he felt
that sleep would not come to him, for a fever coursed in his veins, and
a desire for reverie fermented in his heart. Dreading a wakeful night,
one of those enervating attacks of insomnia brought about by agitation
of the spirit, he thought he would try to read. How many times had a
short reading served him as a narcotic! So he got up and went into his
library to choose a good and soporific work; but his mind, aroused in
spite of himself, eager for any emotion it could find, sought among the
shelves for the name of some author that would respond to his state of
exaltation and expectancy. Balzac, whom he loved, said nothing to him;
h