BERSELIUS BEHOLDS HIS OTHER SELF
On the morning after Berselius’s conversation with Adams, Berselius left the Avenue Malakoff, taking his way to the Avenue des Champs Elysées on foot.
The change in the man was apparent even in his walk. In the old days he was rapid in his movements, erect of head, keen of eye. The weight of fifteen years seemed to have suddenly fallen on his shoulders, bowing them and slowing his step. He was in reality carrying the most terrible burden that a man can carry—himself.
A self that was dead, yet with which he had to live. A past which broke continually up through his dreams.
He was filled with profound unrest, irritation and revolt; everything connected with that other one, even the money he had made and the house he had built for himself and the pursuits he had followed, increased this irritation and revolt. He had already formed plans for taking a new house in Paris, but to-day, as he walked along the streets, he recognized that Paris itself was a house, every corner of which belonged to that other one’s past.
In the Avenue Champs Elysées, he hailed a fiacre and drove to the house of his lawyer, M. Cambon, which was situated in the Rue d’Artiles.
Cambon had practically retired from his business, which was carried on now by his son. But for a few old and powerful clients, such as Berselius, he still acted personally.
He was at home, and Berselius was shown into a drawing room, furnished heavily after the heart of the prosperous French bourgeois.
He had not to wait long for the appearance of the lawyer, a fat, pale-faced gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, tightly buttoned up in a frock-coat, the buttonhole of which was adorned with the red rosette of the Legion of Honour.
Cambon had known Berselius for years. The two men were friends, and even more, for Cambon was the depository of Berselius’s most confidential affairs.