he child began to haunt him. Often, when he was at home
alone at night, he suddenly thought he heard George calling out "Papa,"
and his heart would begin to beat, and he would get up quickly and open
the door, to see whether, by chance, the child might have returned,
as dogs or pigeons do. Why should a child have less instinct than
an animal? On finding that he was mistaken, he would sit down in his
armchair again and think of the boy. He would think of him for hours
and whole days. It was not only a moral, but still more a physical
obsession, a nervous longing to kiss him, to hold and fondle him, to
take him on his knees and dance him. He felt the child's little arms
around his neck, his little mouth pressing a kiss on his beard, his soft
hair tickling his cheeks, and the remembrance of all those childish ways
made him suffer as a man might for some beloved woman who has left him.
Twenty or a hundred times a day he asked himself the question whether
he was or was not George's father, and almost before he was in bed every
night he recommenced the same series of despairing questionings.

He especially dreaded the darkness of the evening, the melancholy
feeling of the twilight. Then a flood of sorrow invaded his heart, a
torrent of despair which seemed to overwhelm him and drive him mad. He
was as afraid of his own thoughts as men are of criminals, and he fled
before them as one does from wild beasts. Above all things, he feared
his empty, dark, horrible dwelling and the deserted streets, in which,
here and there, a gas lamp flickered, where the isolated foot passenger
whom one hears in the distance seems to be a night prowler, and makes
one walk faster or slower, according to whether he is coming toward you
or following you.

And in spite of himself, and by instinct, Parent went in the direction
of the broad, well-lighted, populous streets. The light and the crowd
attracted him, occupied his mind and distracted his thoughts, and when
he was tired of walking aimlessly about among the moving crowd, when
he saw the foot passengers becoming more scarce and the pavements less
crowded, the fear of solitude and silence drove him into some large cafe
full of drinkers and of light. He went there as flies go to a candle,
and he would sit down at one of the little round tables and ask for
a "bock," which he would drink slowly, feeling uneasy every time a
customer got up to go. He would have liked to take him by the arm, hold
him b