Chapter 2

As soon as he got out, Pierre made his way to the Rue de Paris, the
high-street of Havre, brightly lighted up, lively and noisy. The rather
sharp air of the seacoast kissed his face, and he walked slowly, his
stick under his arm and his hands behind his back. He was ill at ease,
oppressed, out of heart, as one is after hearing unpleasant tidings.
He was not distressed by any definite thought, and he would have been
puzzled to account, on the spur of the moment, for this dejection of
spirit and heaviness of limb. He was hurt somewhere, without knowing
where; somewhere within him there was a pin-point of pain--one of those
almost imperceptible wounds which we cannot lay a finger on, but which
incommode us, tire us, depress us, irritate us--a slight and occult
pang, as it were a small seed of distress.

When he reached the square in front of the theatre, he was attracted
by the lights in the Cafe Tortoni, and slowly bent his steps to the
dazzling facade; but just as he was going in he reflected that he would
meet friends there and acquaintances--people he would be obliged to
talk to; and fierce repugnance surged up in him for this commonplace
good-fellowship over coffee cups and liqueur glasses. So, retracing his
steps, he went back to the high-street leading to the harbour.

"Where shall I go?" he asked himself, trying to think of a spot he liked
which would agree with his frame of mind. He could not think of one, for
being alone made him feel fractious, yet he could not bear to meet any
one. As he came out on the Grand Quay he hesitated once more; then he
turned towards the pier; he had chosen solitude.

Going close by a bench on the breakwater he sat down, tired already of
walking and out of humour with his stroll before he had taken it.

He said to himself: "What is the matter with me this evening?" And he
began to search in his memory for what vexation had crossed him, as we
question a sick man to discover the cause of his fever.

His mind was at once irritable and sober; he got excited, then he
reasoned, approving or blaming his impulses; but in time primitive
nature at last proved the stronger; the sensitive man always had the
upper hand over the intellectual man. So he tried to discover what had
induced this irascible mood, this craving to be moving without wanting
anything, this desire to meet some one for the sake of differing from
him, and at the same time this aversion for the people he might see and
the things they might say to him.

And then he put the question to himself, "Can it be Jean's inheritance?"

Yes, it was certainly possible. When the lawyer had announced the news
he had felt his heart beat a little faster. For, indeed, one is not