A flower-seller offers me pinks. Why must it be pinks, which I dislike because they resemble raw flesh and smell of a chemist's shop? To please her I take a handful at my own price, and since it was a generous one, the old woman rewards me with a "God bless the gentleman for giving me such a fine douceur to-night!" Although I know the dodge, the blessing sounds pleasantly in my ears, for I have great need of one after so many curses. About half-past eight the news-vendors cry _La Presse_, and that is a signal for me to go. If I remain sitting to eat some dessert, and to drink an extra glass of wine, I am certain to be annoyed in some way or other, either by a troop of cocottes, who sit down exactly opposite me, or by roaming street urchins, who abuse me. There is no mistake about it; I am put upon diet, and if I take more than three courses and half a flask of wine, I am punished. After my first attempts to transgress the limits at meal-times have been frustrated in this way, I give up making any more, and finally find myself contented to be put on half rations. So I get up from table, in order to betake myself to the Rue Bonaparte and from thence up to the Luxembourg. At the corner of the Rue Gozlin I buy cigarettes, and pass the "Gold Pheasant" restaurant. At the corner of the Rue du Four I pause by a strikingly realistic picture of Christ. The spiritually minded artists during their campaign against the Zola-literature have not been able to avoid the contagion of realism, and with the help of one devil seek to drive out another. It is impossible to pass such pictures without pausing to contemplate them, drawn as they are after living models and painted with the glaring colours of the impressionists. The shop is closed and veiled in shadow, and the Redeemer stands there in His royal robe lit by the street lamp, showing His bleeding heart and head crowned with thorns. For more than a year I have been persecuted and followed by the Redeemer, whom I do not understand and whose help I should like to dispense with by bearing my own cross if possible. This is due to a remnant of manly pride which finds something repulsive in the cowardice of casting one's sins on the shoulders of the innocent. I have seen the Crucified everywhere--in the toy shops, at the picture dealers', at the Art Exhibitions particularly, in the theatre, and in literature. I have seen Him on the cover of my cushion, in the burning logs in the oven, in the snow over there in Sweden, on the coast cliffs of Normandy. Is He preparing for His return, or has He arrived? What does He want? Here in the shop window in the Rue Bonaparte He is no longer the Crucified. He comes from heaven as Victor, adorned with gold and jewels. Is He the "Good Tyrant" which youth dreams of, a Prince of Peace, a glorious hero?