>>7730252Ah! you would like to know why I hate you today. It will no doubt be harder for you to understand than for me to explain it to you; as you are, I believe, the most perfect example offeminine impermeability that one could encounter.
We had just passed a long day together that appeared short to me. We had each sworn that all our thoughts would be common to the both of us, and that our two souls would nevermore do anything, but as one;—a dream that has nothing original in it, after all, except that, dreamt by all men, it has been realized by none.
That evening, a bit tired, you wanted to sit outside in front of the new café on the corner of the new boulevard, still covered in rubble but already showing gloriously its unfinished splendors. The café sparkled with light. The gas lamps themselves radiated all the warmth of a new day, and with all their strength brightened the blinding white walls, the dazzling faces of the mirrors, the gilded mouldings and cornices, the errand-boys with chubby cheeks trailing behind their leashed dogs, the ladies laughing at the falcons perched on their fists, the nymphs and goddesses carrying on their heads fruits, pâtés and game meats, the Hebes and Ganymedes presenting with outstretched arms a little amphora of Bavarian cream or a two-toned obelisk of a selection of ices; all history and all mythology put into service of gluttony.
Just in front of us, on the roadway, was planted a brave man of some forty years, with a weary face, a grizzled beard, holding the hand of a little boy and carrying in his other arm a small child too weak to walk. He was playing the nanny and taking his children out for some evening air. All in rags. These three faces were extraordinarily serious, and these six eyes fixedly contemplated the new café with equal admiration, though varying in expression according to age.
