Then I caught sight of the carriage which was waiting for me in the
shade of a tree, and I returned to Saint-Tropez.
_April 14th_.
I was going to bed yesterday evening, although it was only nine
o'clock, when a telegram was handed to me. A friend, one of my dearest,
sent me this message: "I am at Monte-Carlo for four days, and have been
telegraphing to you at every port on the coast. Come to me at once."
And behold, the wish to see him, the longing to talk, to laugh, to
gossip about society, about things, about people; the longing to
slander, to criticize, to blame, to judge, to chatter, was alight
within me in a moment, like a conflagration. On that morning, even,
I should have been furious at this recall, yet in the evening I
was enchanted at it; I wished myself already there, with the great
dining-room of the restaurant full of people before my eyes, and in my
ears that murmur of voices in which the numbers of the roulette table
dominate all other phrases, like the _Dominus vobiscum_ of the church
services.