cture that he
could say nothing more.

She then resumed:

"We dine at six o'clock, and you can amuse yourself until then. I cannot
entertain you, as I have so many things to do."

When he was alone he hesitated as to whether he should sleep or take a
walk. He looked first at the door leading to his room and then at the
hall door, and decided to go out. He sauntered slowly through the quiet
Breton town, so sleepy, so calm, so dead, on the shores of its inland bay
that is called "le Morbihan." He looked at the little gray houses, the
occasional pedestrians, the empty stores, and he murmured:

"Vannes is certainly not gay, not lively. It was a sad idea, my coming
here."

He reached the harbor, the desolate harbor, walked back along a lonely,
deserted boulevard, and got home before five o'clock. Then he threw
himself on his bed to sleep till dinner time. The maid woke him, knocking
at the door.

"Dinner is ready, sir:"

He went downstairs. In the damp dining-room with the paper peeling from
the walls near the floor, he saw a soup tureen on a round table without
any table cloth, on which were also three melancholy soup-plates.

M. and Mme. Padoie entered the room at the same time as Varajou. They all
sat down to table, and the husband and wife crossed themselves over the
pit of their stomachs, after which Padoie helped the soup, a meat soup.
It was the day for pot-roast.

After the soup, they had the beef, which was done to rags, melted,
greasy, like pap. The officer ate slowly, with disgust, weariness and
rage.

Mme. Padoie said to her husband:

"Are you going to the judge's house this evening?"

"Yes, dear."

"Do not stay late. You always get so tired when you go out. You are not
made for society, with your poor health."

She then talked about society in Vannes, of the excellent social circle
in which the Padoies moved, thanks to their religious sentiments.

A puree of potatoes and a dish of pork were next served, in honor of the
guest. Then some cheese, and that was all. No coffee.

When Varajou saw that he would have to spend the evening tete-a-tete with
his sister, endure her reproaches, listen to her sermons, without even a
glass of liqueur to help him to swallow these remonstrances, he felt that
he could not stand the torture, and declared that he was obliged to go to
the police station to have something attended to regarding his leave of
absence. And he made his escape at seven o'clock.

He had