the bright
colour in his cheeks, the very gloss of his beard seemed to proclaim his
happiness.

When the family had gone, Pierre, alone once more, resumed his
investigations in the apartments to let. After two or three hours
spent in going up and down stairs, he at last found, in the Boulevard
Francois, a pretty set of rooms; a spacious entresol with two doors on
two different streets, two drawing-rooms, a glass corridor, where his
patients while they waited, might walk among flowers, and a delightful
dining-room with a bow-window looking out over the sea.

When it came to taking it, the terms--three thousand francs--pulled him
up; the first quarter must be paid in advance, and he had nothing, not a
penny to call his own.

The little fortune his father had saved brought him in about eight
thousand francs a year, and Pierre had often blamed himself for having
placed his parents in difficulties by his long delay in deciding on a
profession, by forfeiting his attempts and beginning fresh courses of
study. So he went away, promising to send his answer within two days,
and it occurred to him to ask Jean to lend him the amount of this
quarter's rent, or even of a half-year, fifteen hundred francs, as soon
as Jean should have come into possession.

"It will be a loan for a few months at most," he thought. "I shall repay
him, very likely before the end of the year. It is a simple matter, and
he will be glad to do so much for me."

As it was not yet four o'clock, and he had nothing to do, absolutely
nothing, he went to sit in the public gardens; and he remained a long
time on a bench, without an idea in his brain, his eyes fixed on the
ground, crushed by weariness amounting to distress.

And yet this was how he had been living all these days since his return
home, without suffering so acutely from the vacuity of his existence and
from inaction. How had he spent his time from rising in the morning till
bed-time?

He had loafed on the pier at high tide, loafed in the streets, loafed in
the cafes, loafed at Marowsko's, loafed everywhere. And on a sudden this
life, which he had endured till now, had become odious, intolerable. If
he had had any pocket-money, he would have taken a carriage for a long
drive in the country, along by the farm-ditches shaded by beech and elm
trees; but he had to think twice of the cost of a glass of beer or a
postage-stamp, and such an indulgence was out of his ken. It suddenly
struck him how ha