was walking absent-mindedly along the Avenue de l'Opéra and encountered Floss, whom he had not seen for many months. With a genuinely grieved air she complained of his defection, beaming fondly and forgivingly in the end.
"What you been doing, honey?" she inquired.
And just for something to say, he had wearily replied, "Oh, writing a novel about how tragic life is!"
Which was the first acknowledgment of the fact that he had made even to himself, for no matter how zealous he might be in his introspections, the truth about the most obvious of his acts usually popped out from some subconscious source.
But he did not accept Floss's urgent invitations. Only by slow and careful construction, brick on brick, could he hope now to build up his intellectual freedom and his right to dissipate his energies at the bidding of a curiosity that led one straight into some bog or other.
The encounter with Floss, however, made him vaguely restless, bringing back, as it did, the vivid recollection of sights, sounds, and flavors that had so complicated, yet undeniably so enriched his experience. The restlessness culminated in a sudden desire to revisit Marthe. He had not seen her since a spring evening shortly before Rhoda's appearance in Paris, though she had often been in his mind. In fact, when he reviewed his life in this kaleidoscope of a city, it seemed that Marthe, poor drab whose closeness to the earth had
