o task like mine to accomplish.

Sitting by herself at a table, constantly looking around, was a girl
with a painted face. A full glass was set in front of her and she held
a little dog on her lap. His head reached over the edge of the marble
table, and he comically sued on behalf of his mistress for the glances,
even the smiles of the passersby.

The woman looked at me with interest. She saw I was not waiting for
anybody or anything.

A sign, a word, and she, who was waiting for everybody, would come over
to me with a smile. But no! I was simpler than that. If love
troubled me, it was because of a great thought and not a mere instinct.

It was my misfortune to have a dream greater and stronger than I could
bear.

Woe to those who dream of what they do not possess! They are right,
but they are too right, and so are outside of nature. The simple, the
weak, the humble pass carelessly by what is not meant for them. They
touch everything lightly, without anguish. But the others! But I!

I wanted to take what was not mine. I wanted to steal. I wanted to
live all lives, to dwell in all hearts.

Ah! I saw now how I should be punished for having entered into the
living secrets of man. My punishment would fit my crime. I was
destined to undergo the infinite misery I read in the others. I was to
be punished by every mystery that kept its secret, by every woman who
went by.

Infinity is not what we think. We associate it with heroes of legend
and romance, and we invest fiery, exceptional characters, like a
Hamlet, with infinity as with a theatrical costume. But infinity
resides quietly in that man who is just passing by on the street. It
resides in me, just as I am, with my ordinary face and name, in me, who
want everything I have not. And there is no reason why there should be
any limits to what I want.

So, step by step, I followed the track of the infinite. It made me
suffer. Ah, if I did wrong, that great misery of mine, the tragedy of
striving for the impossible, redeemed me. But I do not believe in
redemption. I was suffering, and doubtless I looked like a martyr.

I had to go home to fulfil my martyrdom in the whole of its wretched
duration. I had to go on looking. I was losing time in the world
outside. I returned to my room, which welcomed me like a living being.

. . . . .

I passed two idle days, watching fruitlessly.

I took to my hasty pacing to and fro again and succeeded,