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