He now followed, with the slow march of persons oppressed with a sense of weariness, these deserted quays, that terrace on the bank of the river, whose balustrades permitted glimpses of the silhouettes of slender trees. He met no one. Upon the Place de la Concorde, still wet with the scarce dried rain of this November night, as mild as an evening in spring, permeated by a warm mist, he looked for a moment at the Palace of the Corps Legislatif, gloomy-looking and outlining its roofs against the misty sky, whose gleams fell on the horizon with a bluish tint, while upon the broad sidewalks, the jets of gas magnified the reddened reflections with their own ruddy hues. Along the grand avenue of the Champs-Elysees there were only two immense parallel rows of gas-lamps and here and there, moving, luminous points that looked like glow-worms. Vaudrey mechanically stopped a moment to contemplate the scene. That did not interest him, but something within him controlled him. He continued to walk unwittingly in the direction of Parc Monceau. The solitude of the Champs-Elysees pleased him. While passing before an important club with its windows lighted, he instinctively shuddered. Through the lace-like branches of the trees, he looked at the green shades, the lustres, the unpolished sconces, with the backgrounds of red and gold hangings, and the great, gold frames, and he imagined that they were discussing the causes of his defeat and the success of Granet. "They are speaking of me, in there! They are talking about my fall! He is fallen! Fallen! Beaten!--They are laughing, they are making jokes! There are some there who yesterday were asking me for places." He continued on his way without quickening his pace; the deserted cafe concerts, as melancholy-looking as empty stages, the wreaths of suspended pearl-like lamps illuminated during the summer months but now colorless, seemed ironical amid the clumps of bare trees as gloomy as cemetery yews, exhaling a sinister, forsaken spirit as if this solitude were full of extinct songs, defunct graces, phantoms, and last year's mirth. And Vaudrey felt a strangely delicious sensation even in his bitterness at this impression of solitude, as if he might have been lost, forgotten forever, in the very emptiness of this silent corner. Going on, he passed before the Elysee. A _sergent de ville_ who was slowly pacing up and down in front of an empty sentry-box, his two hands ensconced in the sleeves of his coat, the hood of which he had turned up, cast a sidelong glance at him, almost suspiciously, as if wondering what a prowler could want to do there, at such an hour. "He does not know whom he has looked at," he said. "And yesterday, only yesterday, he would have saluted me subserviently!" The windows of the Elysee facing the street were still lighted up and Vaudrey thought that shadows were moving behind the white curtains.