I
He was a clerk in the Bureau of Public Education and lived at
Batignolles. He took the omnibus to Paris every morning and always sat
opposite a girl, with whom he fell in love.
She was employed in a shop and went in at the same time every day. She
was a little brunette, one of those girls whose eyes are so dark that
they look like black spots, on a complexion like ivory. He always saw
her coming at the corner of the same street, and she generally had to
run to catch the heavy vehicle, and sprang upon the steps before the
horses had quite stopped. Then she got inside, out of breath, and,
sitting down, looked round her.
The first time that he saw her, Francois Tessier liked the face. One
sometimes meets a woman whom one longs to clasp in one's arms without
even knowing her. That girl seemed to respond to some chord in his
being, to that sort of ideal of love which one cherishes in the depths
of the heart, without knowing it.
He looked at her intently, not meaning to be rude, and she became
embarrassed and blushed. He noticed it, and tried to turn away his eyes;
but he involuntarily fixed them upon her again every moment, although he
tried to look in another direction; and, in a few days, they seemed to
know each other without having spoken. He gave up his place to her when
the omnibus was full, and got outside, though he was very sorry to do
it. By this time she had got so far as to greet him with a little smile;
and, although she always dropped her eyes under his looks, which she
felt were too ardent, yet she did not appear offended at being looked at
in such a manner.
They ended by speaking. A kind of rapid friendship had become
established between them, a daily freemasonry of half an hour, and that
was certainly one of the most charming half hours in his life to him. He
thought of her all the rest of the day, saw her image continually during
the long office hours. He was haunted and bewitched by that floating and
yet tenacious recollection which the form of a beloved woman leaves
in us, and it seemed to him that if he could win that little person it
would be maddening happiness to him, almost above human realization.
Every morning she now shook hands with him, and he preserved the sense
of that touch and the recollection of the gentle pressure of her little
fingers until the next day, and he almost fancied that he preserved the
imprint on his palm. He anxiously waited for this short omnibus ride,
while Sundays seemed to him heartbreaking days. However, there was no
doubt that she loved him, for one Saturday, in spring, she promised to
go and lunch with him at Maisons-Laffitte the next day.