الفصل الفصل 358 · ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION

During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in

1833, the rare passers-by in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the

loungers on thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who

emerged every day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de

l’Homme Armé, on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie,

passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue

Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, on arriving at the Rue de l’Écharpe,

turned to the left, and entered the Rue Saint-Louis.

There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing

nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which

seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no other

than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he

approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort

of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a

fascinated and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure

movements, as though he were talking to some one whom he did not see,

he smiled vaguely and advanced as slowly as possible. One would have

said that, while desirous of reaching his destination, he feared the

moment when he should be close at hand. When only a few houses remained

between him and that street which appeared to attract him his pace

slackened, to such a degree that, at times, one might have thought that

he was no longer advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the

fixity of his eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle

seeking the pole. Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to

arrive at last; he reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he

halted, he trembled, he thrust his head with a sort of melancholy

timidity round the corner of the last house, and gazed into that

street, and there was in that tragic look something which resembled the

dazzling light of the impossible, and the reflection from a paradise

that was closed to him. Then a tear, which had slowly gathered in the

corner of his lids, and had become large enough to fall, trickled down

his cheek, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its

bitter flavor. Thus he remained for several minutes as though made of

stone, then he returned by the same road and with the same step, and,

in proportion as he retreated, his glance died out.

Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the

Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis;

sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer.

One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine

and looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he

shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself

something, and retraced his steps.

Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as

the Rue Pavée, shook his head and turned back; then he went no further

than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the

Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was

no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before

ceasing altogether.

Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the

same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without himself

being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole

countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?—His eye was

dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer

collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry.

The old man’s head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times;

the folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the

weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened

it.

The good women of the quarter said: “He is an innocent.” The children

followed him and laughed.

BOOK NINTH—SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN