he would get up quickly and open the door,
to see whether, by chance, the child might have returned, as dogs or
pigeons do. Why should a child have less instinct than an animal? On
finding that he was mistaken, he would sit down in his armchair again and
think of the boy. He would think of him for hours and whole days. It was
not only a moral, but still more a physical obsession, a nervous longing
to kiss him, to hold and fondle him, to take him on his knees and dance
him. He felt the child's little arms around his neck, his little mouth
pressing a kiss on his beard, his soft hair tickling his cheeks, and the
remembrance of all those childish ways made him suffer as a man might for
some beloved woman who has left him. Twenty or a hundred times a day he
asked himself the question whether he was or was not George's father, and
almost before he was in bed every night he recommenced the same series of
despairing questionings.

He especially dreaded the darkness of the evening, the melancholy feeling
of the twilight. Then a flood of sorrow invaded his heart, a torrent of
despair which seemed to overwhelm him and drive him mad. He was as afraid
of his own thoughts as men are of criminals, and he fled before them as
one does from wild beasts. Above all things, he feared his empty, dark,
horrible dwelling and the deserted streets, in which, here and there, a
gas lamp flickered, where the isolated foot passenger whom one hears in
the distance seems to be a night prowler, and makes one walk faster or
slower, according to whether he is coming toward you or following you.

And in spite of himself, and by instinct, Parent went in the direction of
the broad, well-lighted, populous streets. The light and the crowd
attracted him, occupied his mind and distracted his thoughts, and when he
was tired of walking aimlessly about among the moving crowd, when he saw
the foot passengers becoming more scarce and the pavements less crowded,
the fear of solitude and silence drove him into some large cafe full of
drinkers and of light. He went there as flies go to a candle, and he
would sit down at one of the little round tables and ask for a "bock,"
which he would drink slowly, feeling uneasy every time a customer got up
to go. He would have liked to take him by the arm, hold him back, and beg
him to stay a little longer, so much did he dread the time when the
waiter should come up to him and say sharply: "Come, monsieur, it is
closing time!"