I walked on. I saw houses before me and a servant told me that I was at Montreuil. I looked at my watch: it was only noon. Great heaven! how the time would drag now!
I went into a sort of restaurant; I was not hungry, but I wanted to find some way of shortening the day; I did not wish to return to Paris so early. It seemed to me that everybody would read my misfortune in my face; but I dreaded especially the returning to my house. I hoped, however, that I should not find her there. Her property would enable her to live comfortably; let her go, but let her leave me my children; I must have them; I believed that I had the right to take them away from their mother. In any event, it would be no great deprivation to her; she did not know how to love her children; in truth, she did not deserve that I should regret her.
I tried to eat, but it was impossible for me to swallow. I paid, and left the inn. I walked on, and then looked at my watch again; the time stood still. However, it was necessary for me to return to Paris sooner or later. I arrived there at three o’clock.
If she were still at my house, I felt that I could not endure her presence; I therefore determined to ascertain before going in.
It gave me a pang to see those boulevards again, and a still greater pang to see my home. I looked up at our windows. She used to sit there sometimes, watching for me, and smiling at me. Why was she not there now? Oh! if it only might all prove to be a dream, how happy I should be, what a relief it would be to me! but no, it was only too true, I no longer had a wife! there was no Eugénie for me! What had I done to her that she should make me so wretched?
Fool that I was! I was weeping again, although I was in the midst of Paris, amid that throng of people who would laugh at me if they knew the cause of my grief.
I must be a man, at least in the presence of other people.
I entered the house and accosted my concierge.
“Is madame at home?”
“No, monsieur, madame went away about ten o’clock, in a cab, with bundles and boxes, and with mademoiselle her daughter.”