"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."
The streets seemed to me intolerably sad. The passers-by made upon me
the impression of spectres. When I saw in the distance a hat shining
on a gentleman's head, like a light-house in the night, like a gilded
cupola in the sunshine, my heart leaped. But it was never William. In
the lowering, pewter-colored sky, no hope was shining.