BOOK II
BEING
I
It is her eyes in particular. Ever since her eyes have made a part of my life, I have known what nostalgia for Brittany means, and the infinite mournfulness with which it permeates a human being.
She is like the rest of her race, short-legged, round, thick-set, and her gestures conceal rather than reveal her hands. She talks in a singsong and ends with a sigh. Her name is Marie, as though she were a little nurse-maid of eighteen at thirty francs a month. Oh, it's not the room she takes up. But for her blue-thistle gaze and the plaint of her body, you'd scarcely know she was there.
Seven o'clock. I am already on the street with bent head, insensible to the allurements of the shops, driven blindly on with cheeks inflamed by the wind.
The great porte-cochère, the steps three at a time, two pulls at the bell, long, breathless minutes; finally the door opens, cautiously. Marie behind the door squeezes herself up on tiptoe against the wall to let me pass.