et I delayed; some secret influence
rooted me to the spot.

When Smith came I knew no repose from the time he entered the room. How
is it that sometimes we seem to enjoy unhappiness?

One day a word, a flush, a glance, made me shudder; another day, another
glance, another word, threw me into uncertainty. Why were they both so
sad? Why was I as motionless as a statue where I had formerly been
violent? Every evening in bed I said to myself: "Let me see; let me think
that over." Then I would spring up, crying: "Impossible!" The next day I
did the same thing.

In Smith's presence, Brigitte treated me with more tenderness than when
we were alone. It happened one evening that some hard words escaped us;
when she heard his voice in the hall she came and sat on my knees. As for
him, it seemed to me he was always making an effort to control himself.
His gestures were carefully regulated; he spoke slowly and prudently, so
that his occasional moments of forgetfulness seemed all the more
striking.

Was it curiosity that tormented me? I remember that one day I saw a man
drowning near the Pont Royal. It was midsummer and we were rowing on the
river; some thirty boats were crowded together under the bridge, when
suddenly one of the occupants of a boat near mine threw up his hands and
fell overboard. We immediately began diving for him, but in vain; some
hours later the body was found under a raft.

I shall never forget my experience as I was diving for that man. I opened
my eyes under the water and searched painfully here and there in the dark
corners about the pier; then I returned to the surface for breath, then
resumed my horrible search. I was filled with hope and terror; the
thought that I might feel myself seized by convulsive arms allured me,
and at the same time thrilled me with horror; when I was exhausted with
fatigue, I climbed back into my boat.

Unless a man is brutalized by debauchery, eager curiosity is one of his
marked traits. I have already remarked that I felt it on the occasion of
my first visit to Desgenais. I will explain my meaning.

The truth, that skeleton of appearances, ordains that every man,
whatsoever he be, shall come, in his day and hour, to touch the bones
that lie forever at the bottom of some chance experience. It is called
"knowing the world," and experience is purchased at that price. Some
recoil in terror before that test; others, feeble and affrighted,
vacillate like shadows. Some, the be