"It is life."
This phrase pursued me, obsessed me, like a music-hall refrain.
And, as I went away, I could not help thinking, not without a feeling of sorrowful melancholy, of the joy with which I had been welcomed in that house. The same scene must have taken place. They had opened the usual bottle of champagne. William had taken the blonde girl on his knees, and had whispered in her ear:
"You will have to be nice with Baby."
The same words, the same movements, the same caresses, while Eugénie, devouring the janitor's son with her eyes, led him into the adjoining room.
"Your little phiz, your little hands, your big eyes!"
I walked on, utterly irresolute and stupefied, repeating to myself with stupid obstinacy:
"Yes, indeed, it is life; it is life."
For more than an hour, in front of the door, I paced up and down the sidewalk, hoping that William might come in or go out. I saw the grocer enter, a little milliner with two big band-boxes, and the delivery-man from the Louvre; I saw the plumbers come out, and I know not who or what else,—shades, shades, shades. I did not dare to go into the janitor's lodge in the next house. The janitress undoubtedly would not have received me well. And what would she have said to me? Then I went away for good, still pursued by the irritating refrain:
"It is life."