forward in the white light of the lamp,
one would never have imagined all the sinister thoughts with which it was
thronged.

At last she takes up the last bird of the dozen, a marvellously lovely
little bird whose wings seem to have been dipped in sea-water, all green
as they are with a tinge of sapphire.

Carefully, daintily, Desiree suspends it on a piece of brass wire, in the
charming attitude of a frightened creature about to fly away.

Ah! how true it is that the little blue bird is about to fly away! What a
desperate flight into space! How certain one feels that this time it is
the great journey, the everlasting journey from which there is no return!

By and by, very softly, Desiree opens the wardrobe and takes a thin shawl
which she throws over her shoulders; then she goes. What? Not a glance at
her mother, not a silent farewell, not a tear? No, nothing! With the
terrible clearness of vision of those who are about to die, she suddenly
realizes that her childhood and youth have been sacrificed to a vast
self-love. She feels very sure that a word from their great man will
comfort that sleeping mother, with whom she is almost angry for not
waking, for allowing her to go without a quiver of her closed eyelids.

When one dies young, even by one's own act, it is never without a
rebellious feeling, and poor Desiree bids adieu to life, indignant with
destiny.

Now she is in the street. Where is she going? Everything seems deserted
already. Desiree walks rapidly, wrapped in her little shawl, head erect,
dry-eyed. Not knowing the way, she walks straight ahead.

The dark, narrow streets of the Marais, where gas-jets twinkle at long
intervals, cross and recross and wind about, and again and again in her
feverish course she goes over the same ground. There is always something
between her and the river. And to think that, at that very hour, almost
in the same quarter, some one else is wandering through the streets,
waiting, watching, desperate! Ah! if they could but meet. Suppose she
should accost that feverish watcher, should ask him to direct her:

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur. How can I get to the Seine?"

He would recognize her at once.

"What! Can it be you, Mam'zelle Zizi? What are you doing out-of-doors at
this time of night?"

"I am going to die, Frantz. You have taken away all my pleasure in
living."

Thereupon he, deeply moved, would seize her, press her to his heart and
carry her away in his arms, say