t fell. I looked for a word like mine, a word to lean upon, a word
to sustain me. And it seemed to me that I was going along groping my
way as if expecting some one to come from round the corner and tell me
everything.

I did not return to my room. I did not want to leave the crowds that
evening. I looked for a place that was alive.

I went into a large restaurant so as to hear voices around me. There
were only a few vacant places, and I found a seat in a corner near a
table at which three people were dining. I gave my order, and while my
eyes mechanically followed the white-gloved hand pouring soup into my
plate from a silver cup, I listened to the general hubbub.

All I could catch was what my three neighbours were saying. They were
talking of people in the place whom they knew, then of various friends.
Their persiflage and the consistent irony of their remarks surprised
me.

Nothing they said was worth the while, and the evening promised to be
useless like the rest.

A few minutes later, the head waiter, while serving me with filets of
sole, nodded his head and winked his eye in the direction of one of the
guests.

"M. Villiers, the famous writer," he whispered proudly.

I recognised M. Villiers. He resembled his portraits and bore his
young glory gracefully. I envied that man his ability to write and say
what he thought. I studied his profile and admired its worldly
distinction. It was a fine modern profile, the straightness of it
broken by the silken point of his well-kept moustache, by the perfect
curve of his shoulder, and by the butterfly's wing of his white
necktie.

I lifted my glass to my lips when suddenly I stopped and felt all my
blood rush to my heart.

This is what I heard:

"What's the theme of the novel you're working on?"

"Truth," replied Pierre Villiers.

"What?" exclaimed his friend.

"A succession of human beings caught just as they are."

"What subject?" somebody asked.

People turned and listened to him. Two young diners not far away
stopped talking and put on an idling air, evidently with their ears
pricked. In a sumptuous purple alcove, a man in evening clothes, with
sunken eyes and drawn features, was smoking a fat cigar, his whole life
concentrated in the fragrant glow of his tobacco. His companion, her
bare elbow on the table, enveloped in perfume and sparkling with
jewels, and overloaded with the heavy artificiality of luxury, turned
her simple moon-like