He was an assistant teacher of science at a lycée. He had known Annette years before at the University, when they were twenty. From the very first he had been attracted by her. But Annette, who was rich at that time, popular, radiant with youth and happy egoism, carelessly distant, intimidated Julien. Her bolder companions assumed with her the place that he would have liked to take. He envied them, but he did not try to rival them; he considered himself inferior, ugly, awkward, ill-dressed; he was unable to express himself and gave a false idea of his intelligence and his sincerity. The sense of his physical uncouthness paralysed him all the more because he was susceptible to beauty, and Annette inspired in him an unexpressed emotion. For he thought her beautiful; unlike his companions who paid court to her, he did not have a sufficiently free mind to observe cavalierly the imperfections that accompanied her attractions, the strongly marked eyebrows, the prominent eyes, the short nose. He did not see these details. But he alone of all these young men grasped the harmony of this living form, he alone understood it; for, although most people stop at the mere external pattern, every form expresses an inner meaning. Julien did not separate in his own mind Annette's eyes, her forehead, her heavy eyebrows from her energy of character and vigorous mentality. He saw her from a distance, simply, summarily; but he saw her truly, more truly, at this first glance, than when he came nearer and tried to know her better. He was one of those far-sighted spirits that are embarrassed at close range. Sometimes they have genius and stumble at every step. Julien and Annette happened to meet again one morning in the great windowed hall on the first floor of the Library of Sainte-Geneviève. It was nearly ten years since they had seen each other, and Julien had prudently avoided thinking of the image that rose before him to-day. He lifted his eyes from his book. On the other side of the table, a few steps away, he caught sight of her reading. Over her beautiful auburn hair was a fur toque; her cloak was thrown back from her shoulders. (It was still winter, though Easter was approaching; and the hall, into which the icy air of the square filtered through the great windows, was never warm enough. Julien had kept his own coat-collar turned up, but she, with her neck exposed, did not feel the cold.) With one elbow on the table and her chin resting on the back of her hand, she had the familiar attitude which he had seen so long ago, her brow bending forward, her blond eyebrows knit, and the eyes running down the page, while she nibbled the end of her pencil. He felt again as he had felt at twenty. But it did not occur to him to get up and speak to her.