"When you have gone, Joseph, the house will no longer be endurable to me. I have become so accustomed to you now, to our conversations."
"Oh! indeed!"
"I too shall go away."
Joseph says nothing.
He walks up and down the harness-room, with anxious brow and preoccupied mind, his hands nervously twirling a pair of garden-shears in the pocket of his blue apron. The expression of his face is unpleasant. I repeat, as I watch him go back and forth:
"Yes, I shall go away; I shall return to Paris."
He utters not a word of protest, not a cry; not even an imploring glance does he turn upon me. He puts a stick of wood in the stove, as the fire is low, and then begins again his silent promenade up and down the room. Why is he like this? Does he, then, accept this separation? Does he want it? Has he, then, lost his confidence in me, the love that he had for me? Or does he simply fear my imprudence, my eternal questions?
Trembling a little, I ask him:
"Will it cause you no pain, Joseph, if we do not see each other again?"
Without halting in his walk, without even glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, in the manner so characteristic of him, he says: