I had my bundles carried to my old apartment. Ah! how rejoiced I was that I had kept it! It was as if I had divined that I should return to it some day. Madame Dupont stared at my bundles. "Does this mean that monsieur is going to sleep in his room now?" she asked slyly. "Yes, Madame Dupont; after this I am going to live as I used to." That business completed, I took my weapons and went to Raymond's apartment. "Where are you going, monsieur?" inquired the concierge, when she saw me hurrying upstairs. "To Monsieur Raymond's." "Why, monsieur, didn't you know that he'd gone away?" "What's that? gone away?" "To be sure; he didn't sleep here; he took his things away during the night, paid his quarter's rent, and told me to sell his furniture, saying that he'd send someone for the money after a while. I don't know what had happened to him, but he seemed so confused that at first I thought he'd gone mad; he was in such a hurry that he didn't take time to pack the most necessary things. And then he rushed off without telling me where he was going." "The coward! Woe to him if I ever meet him! But he is quite capable of having left Paris!" I left Raymond's concierge in open-mouthed amazement and returned to Rue Saint-Florentin, to arrange my little apartment with a view to resuming my former habits. XXXV MY NEIGHBOR After a few days I recovered my tranquillity; even my spirits, which I had lost, seemed to return with me to my old lodgings; sometimes I fancied that I was still a bachelor; in truth, the best thing for me to do, now that I had no wife, was to forget that I was married. As I had foreseen, I was the one at whom the stones were thrown; I received a letter from my sister, who informed me that it was a frightful thing to have deserted my wife; that we simply must be reconciled; that Madame de Pontchartrain was furious, and that Pélagie was constantly asking her for money. In reply, I wrote my sister an exact account of what had happened, begging her to keep it secret. I knew that she would not, but I did not care if the good people of Melun knew that I was a cuckold; I had no desire to go back there. In my old lodgings I resumed my former mode of life, save for its follies, in which I no longer indulged; indeed, it was necessary for me to lead an orderly, economical life; for my dear wife was running through her fortune very rapidly, and I foresaw that she would soon have recourse to me, and that I should be obliged to make her an allowance. I congratulated myself on the perfect tranquillity that I enjoyed in my house; I realized that Raymond was no longer my neighbor. I should have been glad to find him, however; but I searched Paris for him in vain; he must have left the city.