And a thought intrigued him; it was to stay in Paris and find some means of avoiding Langrune.
The clock of the station struck seven. He paid the waiter and walked towards the boulevards.
Where could he dine? He remembered the name of a restaurant, in the place de la Madeleine, the cooking of which Chambannes and the Marquis had often praised before him.
He sauntered in that direction. The room was still half empty. He ordered a choice dinner, with such dishes as Zozé preferred, a bottle of Saint-Estephe and a bottle of frappé Champagne which was placed before him in a silver vase. His absinthe encouraged him to these libations. Since he had drunk it, he felt livelier and less sad.
He ate abundantly and applied himself to drinking. His ideas became lighter and seemed to penetrate one another. It was a pleasant confusion, and made him giggle at times. Towards the end of the dinner, he conceived the project of a drama, a myth in dialogue form, which would be entitled Hercules. He would show Vice, under the guise of a woman—who in the maste mind resembled Zozé exactly—entering the house of the now aged hero. And the latter would lament, would weep over his departed youth, and would implore the gods to give it back to him.... The drama developed according to this theme, in lofty axioms and lyrical plaints.
This was a much more likely conception than that which represented Hercules choosing, in the prime of his youth, between Vice and Virtue. Did such a choice offer itself in real life? Of course not; one walked on with the one, misunderstanding the other, and vice versa. What libertine did not some day regret the hours spent in debauchery? What man of intellect did not deplore, at some fatal moment, the fact that he had lived in ignorance of the forbidden pleasures? Rare were the men, who, by divine grace, mixed the practice of both in a fair proportion.... There would be, besides, in his myth, avenging blank verses against Vice, against Mme. Chambannes!
M. Raindal rose and shook the crumbs off his waistcoat. In a shaky hand he took his felt hat and walking-stick which the headwaiter handed him. Then, his eyes somewhat cloudy, he walked up the boulevards. Darkness had fallen. The merry crowd of nocturnal walkers rubbed elbows on the pavement. A late summer breath bent the tips of the withering chestnut trees.
M. Raindal once more thought of Zozé, of the lime-trees and the park. A thousand seductive images zigzagged under his burning cranium. He felt like embracing, hugging, loving someone.
When he passed the door of the Olympia, the posters attracted him. He saw women in tights, equilibrists and a young person in a low-neck dress, standing in the middle of a group of trained dogs. Above the posters the name of the establishment, made up of red electric bulbs, scintillated in ruby-colored letters. Girls went in, alone or by twos. Through the half-open swinging doors came confused whiffs of lively music.
M. Raindal hesitated. Then, with a gesture as quick as a pickpocke, he tore from his button-hole his button of an officer of the Légion onneur. He marched straight to the ticket-office, then disappeared inside.