uth? But it is the truth of others. The truth that reaches you is
always different. Isn't it senseless to dread what depends upon
yourself? Are we strangers that I should hesitate like this to run to
him? Isn't he on the other side of the door, he of whom my body is
_thinking_? Isn't it enough for us to look upon each other? Is there a
single question he cannot understand? One seeks happiness. It is all so
simple....

Ah, let us go astray every day, let us deceive ourselves, let us suffer
alongside our own hearts, let us try to clasp the invisible! But this
evening there is nothing but a thin partition between my secret and
myself. I feel my heart throbbing as if it were laid bare. I am
beautiful, I am alive....

Am I not right?...

BOOK II

_BEING_

I

It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my
life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite
mournfulness with which it permeates a human being.

She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and
her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a
singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a
little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the
room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her
body, you'd scarcely know she was there.

* * * * *

Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to
the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by
the wind.

The great porte-cochere, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the
bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously.
Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to
let me pass.

It is almost a sacrilege to speak in a raised voice as I do and bring in
so much of the outside air. "Is dinner ready, Marie, is everything
ready?" Since Marie never answers, I go straight into the kitchen.
Goodness, nothing done. Well, I'll have to get at the supper myself.
There's still a good half-hour left, I believe.

As I hastily remove my wraps, I feel the dull pang that assails you at
the sight of disorder.

There, I have the water boiling now and the cooking is well under way. I
didn't know I was so quick and capable. After all, Marie's only a child.

Marie bustles about. I see her two reddish, porous, spatulate hands
pounce on things, I