[…] Everything fell silent. They left; they went off to hide some­where else. I didn't really understand. Did I even really know what they said?

The room was alone ... I prowled around my own. Then I dined, as in a dream, and went out, attracted by my fellow creatures.

Outside, steep, shuttered houses. The passers-by went away from me; everywhere I saw walls and faces.  A cafe in front of me. Its crude lighting invited me to go in­side. That artificial brilliance appealed to me, reassured me, and yet bewildered me; sitting down, I half-closed my eyes.

Quiet, simple people, without any cares, and who didn't have, as I have, a sort of task to perform, were scattered about in groups.

All alone with a full glass in front of her, looking this way and that, was a whore with a painted face. She had a little bitch on her lap whose head poked out above the table and which amus­ingly solicited the glances and even the smiles of the passers-by for her mistress.

This woman gazed at me with interest. She saw that I wasn't waiting for anybody, that I wasn't waiting for anything.

A gesture, a word, and she, who was waiting for everybody, would come forward, smiling with her whole body. But that wasn't what I wanted. I was simpler than that. I didn't need a woman. If l was disturbed by contact with love, it was on account of a lofty thought and not of an instinct.

She came over to me. She didn't know what sort of person I was. I turned my head away. What did I care about the quick, coarse ecstasy, the sexual comedy? I enjoyed a view over hu­manity, over men and women, and I knew what they did.

The smell of coffee and tobacco, combined with the warm air, produced a drowsy atmosphere. The sounds of the caf6— the clatter of a saucer, the opening and shutting of the street door, a card-player's exclamation—merged together. The faces were lit by a greenish glow. Mine must have been more im­pressive than the rest: it must have appeared ravaged by the pride of having seen, and by the urge to see more.

. . . Earlier on, he had called her 'Aimée.' I didn't know whether that was her name or a declaration of love. I didn't know the names, I didn't know the details, I didn't know anything of that sort. Mankind showed me its innermost secrets; I spelt out the depths of life; but I felt lost on the surface of the world. I had had to make an effort, just before, to slip in between the passers-by, to sit down in this public place, and to ask for what I wanted.

... I thought I recognized the silhouette of one of the other residents at my hotel, passing along the street, past the window of the cafe. I drew back quickly. I was in no condition to chat about this and that; later on, I would resume that dismal habit. I bowed my head, with my elbows on the table and my hands in my hair, to avoid being recognized by the people who knew me, if any of them should happen to pass by.

Now I was walking through the streets. A woman passed me. Automatically I followed her. . . She was wearing a dark-blue dress and a big black hat; she was so distinguished that she seemed a little awkward in the street. She lifted her skirt rather clumsily and I could see her small boots fitting tightly round her slim legs in their sheer black stockings . . . Another woman passed me; I stared ardently into her face. . . Farther on, a grey feminine shape crossed the street; my heart started pounding as if it were waking up.

Curiosity? No, desire. A little earlier, I had had no desire; now, I was dazed with it... I stopped... I was a man like the rest; I had my appetites, my unspoken cravings; and in the grey street along which I was walking aimlessly, I felt a longing to approach a woman's body.

... I pictured to myself the pure nudity of that little figure hugging the walls not far from me. . . She had dainty feet which I could scarcely see. She drew a shawl more tightly round her shoulders. She was holding a bundle. She was leaning forward, she was in such a hurry, as if, like a child, she were trying to outstrip herself. Under that poor shadow there was a body of light, which shone before my eyes in the murky gloom into which she was disappearing ... I thought of the starry beauty she would have, of the radiance of her hair which was concealed and diminished under her skimpy hat, of the happy smile which she was hiding on her solemn face.

I stood rooted to the spot for a moment, motionless in the middle of the road. The ghost-woman is already far away. If I had met her gaze it would have been really painful. I could feel a puckering of my features which was disfiguring me, transfig­uring me.

Up there on the top of a tram, a young girl was sitting; her dress rose a little and billowed out. . . From underneath, it must have been possible to see right inside her. But a traffic jam sep­arated us. The tram moved on, vanished like a nightmare.

Wherever I turned, the street was full of dresses, swaying, offering themselves, so light that they nearly took flight at the edges; dresses which looked as if they were going to fly up but didn't.

In the depths of a tall narrow mirror in a shop-window, I saw myself walking forward, a little pale, with rings round my eyes. It wasn't one woman that I wanted, it was all of them, and I looked for them, all around me, one by one. They passed by and went off, after seeming to approach me.

Defeated, I obeyed my instincts, at random. I followed a woman who was watching for me from her corner. Then we walked side by side. We exchanged a few words; she took me home. On the landing, when she opened the door, I was shaken by a fit of idealism. Then I went through the commonplace scene. It passed as quickly as a fall.

Now I am back on the pavement. I am not feeling any calmer, as I hoped I would. A terrible bewilderment comes over me: it is as if I can no longer see things as they are; I see too far and I see too many things.

What is the matter with me? I sit down on a bench, tired out, exhausted by my own weight. It starts raining again. The passers-by hurry along, becoming scarcer, and then it is all streaming umbrellas, gutters overflowing, roadways and pavements black and shining, a vast half-silence, all the mournful paraphernalia of rain...

The trouble with me is that I have a dream bigger and more disturbing than I can bear. Woe to them who think about what they lack! They are in the right, but they are too much in the right, and consequently they are unnatural. The simple, the weak, the humble, pass unconcernedly by what is not for them; they brush past everything and everybody without so much as a hint of anguish (although even those little souls want little things, minute by minute). But it's a different matter for the rest, for me!

Wanting to take what one lacks. . . stealing... It has been enough for me to see a few human beings struggling in the depths of their reality to become convinced that man moves in that direction as surely as the earth moves in its own.

Unfortunately, I haven't only learnt this appalling, simple truth: I have been caught up in it, infected by it. My own desire is growing wider and stronger; I should like to live every life, lie heavy on every heart, and it seems to me that whatever is not for me is withdrawing from me, and that I am alone, deserted.

And huddled on this bench, in the vast empty street awash with rain, lashed by every squall of wind, hunching my shoul­ders to shelter myself more, I am in despair because I love every­thing as if I were overflowing with kindness.

Oh, now I begin to see how I am going to be punished for penetrating the raw secrets of mankind. My punishment will be made to fit my offence. I shall suffer all the infinite misery which I discover in others. I shall be punished in every mystery which remains silent, in every woman who passes by.

The infinite is not what people think. People tend to see it in the poetic soul of some legendary or literary hero; they clothe the extraordinary extravagance of some romantic Hamlet with it as if it were a theatrical costume. . . The infinite lives quietly in that man whose dim reflection I saw earlier on in the cafe window, and in myself as people see me, with my commonplace features and my ordinary name, longing for everything I lack ... For there is no reason why this should stop; I am treading step by step the path of the infinite, and this progress without any horizon is akin to the stars in the sky. I raise anguished eyes towards them. I am miserable. If I have committed an offence, this misery of mine, full of the sorrow of the impossible, redeems How low that voice was at first, above all how curiously mo­notonous! It seemed to be reciting a litany or a poem. I held my breath so as not to banish that approach of life. . .

. . . It split into two. . .Now there were two voices answering each other. They were overflowing with an ineffable sadness like all voices kept very low ... a musical sadness . . .

No doubt I had another two lovers before me, who had taken refuge for a few moments in the empty room. Two human beings attracted by each other were there in that compact soli­tude, in that colourless abyss; and, although I was incapable of making them out, I could feel them growing excited like my heart in my breast.

I searched for the lost couple. The whole of my attention groped towards those two bodies. In vain. The night entered my eyes and blinded me; the more I looked, the more the darkness hurt me. At one moment, however, I thought I saw a figure take shape, very dark, against the dark window ... It stopped . . . No ... the night; the shadows as motionless as an idol . . . What were they, those living creatures, what were they doing, where were they, where were they? […]