After sitting all day over little problems in arithmetic, he
set off in the evening in working clothes for the _Avenue de
l'Observatoire_. There, between two tallow candles, in front
of a hoarding covered with ballads in illustrated covers, a fellow
was singing in a cracked voice to the accompaniment of a guitar.
A number of workmen and work-girls stood round listening to the
music. Jean slipped into the circle, urged by the instinct that
draws a stroller with nothing to do to the neighbourhood of light
and noise and that love of a crowd which is characteristic of
your Parisian. More isolated in the press, more alone than ever,
he stood dreaming of the splendour and passion of some noble
tragedy of Euripides or Shakespeare. It was some time before he
noticed something soft touching and pressing against him from
behind. He turned round and saw a work-girl in a little black
hat with blue ribbons. She was young and pretty enough, but his
mind was fixed on the awe-inspiring and superhuman graces of
an Electra or a Lady Macbeth. She went on nuzzling against his
back till he looked round again.
"Monsieur," she said then; "will you just let me slip in front
of you? I am so little; I shan't stop your seeing."
She had a nice voice. The poise of her head, lifted and thrown
back on a plump neck, showed a pair of bright eyes and good teeth
between pouting lips. She glided, merry and alert, into the place
Jean made for her without a word.
The man with the guitar sang a ballad about caged birds and blossoms
in flower-pots.
"_Mine_," observed the work-girl to Jean, "are carnations, and
I have birds too--canaries they are."
At the moment he was thinking of some fair-faced châtelaine roaming
under the battlements of a donjon.
The work-girl went on:
"I have a pair,--you understand, to keep each other company. Two
is a nice number, don't you think so?"
He marched off with his visions under the old trees of the Avenue.
After a turn or two up and down, he espied the little work-girl
hanging on the arm of a handsome young fellow, fashionably dressed,
wearing a heavy gold watch-chain. Her admirer was catching her
by the waist in the dusk of the trees, and she was laughing.
Then Jean Servien felt sorry he had scorned her advances.