. . . . .
The lady there! I recognised Amy. She was talking to the landlady beside the window. I did not notice her at first, because of the other boarders between us.
She was eating grapes, daintily, with a rather studied manner.
I turned towards her. Her name was Madame Montgeron or Montgerot. It sounded funny to me. Why did she have that name? It seemed not to suit her, or to be useless. It struck me how artificial words and signs are.
The meal was over. Almost everybody had gone out. Coffee cups and sticky little liqueur glasses were scattered on the table on which a sunbeam shone, mottling the tablecloth and making the glasses sparkle. A coffee stain had dried on the cloth and gave out fragrance.
I joined in the conversation between Amy and Madame Lemercier. She looked at me. I scarcely recognised her look, which I had seen so clearly before.
The man-servant came in and whispered a few words to Madame Lemercier.
She rose, excused herself, and went out of the room. I was left with
Amy. There were only two or three people in the dining-room, who were
discussing what they were going to do in the afternoon.
I did not know what to say to her. The conversation flagged and died out. She must have thought that she did not interest me—this woman, whose heart I had seen, and whose destiny I knew as well as God Himself.
She reached for a newspaper lying on the table, read a line or two, then folded it, rose and also left the room.
Sickened by the commonplaceness of life and dull from the heaviness of the after-lunch hour, I leaned drowsily on the long, long table, the sunlit table disappearing into infinity, and I made an effort to keep my arms from giving way, my chin from dropping, and my eyes from closing.