"Can he suspect anything?" Leon asked himself. His heart beat, and he

racked his brain with surmises.

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see himself

what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguerreotypes. It was a

sentimental surprise he intended for his wife, a delicate attention--his

portrait in a frock-coat. But he wanted first to know "how much it would

be." The inquiries would not put Monsieur Leon out, since he went to

town almost every week.

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some "young man's affair" at the bottom

of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. Leon was after no love-making.

He was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of

food he left on his plate. To find out more about it she questioned

the tax-collector. Binet answered roughly that he "wasn't paid by the

police."

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for Leon often

threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his arms. Complained

vaguely of life.

"It's because you don't take enough recreation," said the collector.

"What recreation?"

"If I were you I'd have a lathe."

"But I don't know how to turn," answered the clerk.

"Ah! that's true," said the other, rubbing his chin with an air of

mingled contempt and satisfaction.

Leon was weary of loving without any result; moreover he was beginning

to feel that depression caused by the repetition of the same kind of

life, when no interest inspires and no hope sustains it. He was so bored

with Yonville and its inhabitants, that the sight of certain persons,

of certain houses, irritated him beyond endurance; and the chemist, good

fellow though he was, was becoming absolutely unbearable to him. Yet

the prospect of a new condition of life frightened as much as it seduced

him.

This apprehension soon changed into impatience, and then Paris from afar

sounded its fanfare of masked balls with the laugh of grisettes. As he

was to finish reading there, why not set out at once? What prevented

him? And he began making home-preparations; he arranged his occupations

beforehand. He furnished in his head an apartment. He would lead an

artist's life there! He would take lessons on the guitar! He would have

a dressing-gown, a Basque cap, blue velvet slippers! He even already was

admiring two crossed foils over his chimney-piece, with a death's head

on the guitar above them.

The difficulty was the consent of his mother; nothing, however, seemed

more reasonable. Even his employer advised him to go to some other

chambers where he could advance more rapidly. Taking a middle course,

then, Leon looked for some place as second clerk at Rouen; found none,

and at last wrote his mother a long letter full of details, in which

he set forth the reasons for going to live at Paris immediately. She

consented.




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