framer Nothing, except my disappointment at
having loved a vain and heartless imbecile. Can I
really have loved this insipid beauty, with his
white and unhealthy face, his regulation black
mutton-chops, and his hair parted down the
middle? This photograph irritates me. I can no
longer have continually before me those two stupid
eyes that look at me with the unchangeable look of
an insolent and servile flunky. Oh! no, let it go
to keep company with the others, at the bottom of
my trunk, pending the time when I shall make of
my more and more detested past a fire of joy and
ashes.
And I think of Joseph. Where is he at the present moment? What is he doing? Is he even thinking of me? Undoubtedly he is in the little café. He is looking, discussing, measuring; he is picturing to himself the effect that I shall produce at the bar, before the mirror, amid the dazzling of the glasses and the multi-colored bottles. I wish that I knew Cherbourg, its streets, its squares, its harbor, that I might represent Joseph to myself going and coming, conquering the city as he has conquered me. I turn and turn again in my bed, a little feverish. My thought goes from the forest of Raillon to Cherbourg, from the body of Claire to the little café. And, after a painful period of insomnia, I finally go off to sleep with the stern and
