His arms are so hairy!"
"Get along with you," screamed the old woman, shoving the girl out
of the restaurant. "You are always poking your nose where it has no
business to be."
Then she concluded with these words: "Look here, to my mind the other
one did quite right to take himself off. It was fine luck for the little
woman!"
When I found myself in the street again I walked along slowly with
trembling limbs. And yet I was not suffering much; I think I smiled once
at my shadow in the sun. It was quite true. I WAS very puny. It had been
a queer notion of mine to marry Marguerite. I recalled her weariness at
Guerande, her impatience, her dull, monotonous life. The dear creature
had been very good to me, but I had never been a real lover; she had
mourned for me as a sister for her brother, not otherwise. Why should I
again disturb her life? A dead man is not jealous.
When I lifted my eyelids I saw the garden of the Luxembourg before me. I
entered it and took a seat in the sun, dreaming with a sense of infinite
restfulness. The thought of Marguerite stirred me softly. I pictured
her in the provinces, beloved, petted and very happy. She had grown
handsomer, and she was the mother of three boys and two girls.
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