ing a sickly little girl with large covetous
eyes, let her play two turns. The revolving stands grated and the
nick-nacks danced round in dazzling fashion, while the live rabbit, with
his ears lowered, revolved and revolved so rapidly that the outline of
his body vanished and he became nothing but a whitish circle. There
was a moment of great emotion, for the little girl had narrowly missed
winning him.

Then, after shaking hands with Chaine, who was still trembling with the
fright this had given him, the two friends walked away.

'He's happy,' said Claude, after they had gone some fifty paces in
silence.

'He!' cried Sandoz; 'why, he believes he has missed becoming a member of
the Institute, and it's killing him.'

Shortly after this meeting, and towards the middle of August, Sandoz
devised a real excursion which would take up a whole day. He had met
Dubuche--Dubuche, careworn and mournful, who had shown himself plaintive
and affectionate, raking up the past and inviting his two old chums to
lunch at La Richaudiere, where he should be alone with his two children
for another fortnight. Why shouldn't they go and surprise him there,
since he seemed so desirous of renewing the old intimacy? But in vain
did Sandoz repeat that he had promised Dubuche on oath to bring
Claude with him; the painter obstinately refused to go, as if he were
frightened at the idea of again beholding Bennecourt, the Seine, the
islands, all the stretch of country where his happy years lay dead and
buried. It was necessary for Christine to interfere, and he finished
by giving way, although full of repugnance to the trip. It precisely
happened that on the day prior to the appointment he had worked at his
painting until very late, being taken with the old fever again. And so
the next morning--it was Sunday--being devoured with a longing to paint,
he went off most reluctantly, tearing himself away from his picture with
a pang. What was the use of returning to Bennecourt? All that was dead,
it no longer existed. Paris alone remained, and even in Paris there
was but one view, the point of the Cite, that vision which haunted him
always and everywhere, that one corner where he ever left his heart.

Sandoz, finding him nervous in the railway carriage, and seeing that
his eyes remained fixed on the window as if he had been leaving the
city--which had gradually grown smaller and seemed shrouded in mist--for
years, did all he could to divert his mind, tell