M. Bergeret was appointed Professor at the Sorbonne. As he left the house of M. le Doyen Torquet, who had apprised him in the most formal terms of his nomination, M. Bergeret, finding himself in the street again, looked at the slate roofs, the familiar free-stone walls, the shaving basin that swung gently to and fro over the door of the hairdresser, the sign of the red cow over the milkman’s, and the little bronze Triton, with water streaming from his mouth, at the corner of the Faubourg de Josde; and all these familiar things appeared suddenly strange in his eyes. His feet had suddenly become unacquainted with the pavements on which he had so long and so often gone his way, with feet rendered heavy by sadness or fatigue, or made light by some slight happiness or amusement. The town, with its towers and steeples standing up against the grey sky, looked to him like some strange, far-away dream city, rather the picture of a city than the reality. And the picture grew smaller and smaller. People, as well as things, seemed far-away and diminished in his eyes. The postman, two women, and the clerk of the court whom he met, looked, to him, like people on a cinematograph screen, absolutely unreal and belonging to quite another world than his. After a few minutes of this strange feeling, he pulled himself up, for he was both thoughtful and quick to read his own motives, thus providing himself with an inexhaustible subject for surprise, sarcasm, and pity. “Come now,” he said to himself, “here is a town in which I have lived for fifteen years, and which suddenly becomes strange to me because I am about to leave it. More than that, it has, to a certain extent, already become unreal to me. Now that it is no longer my own town, it ceases to exist, and is nothing but a vain image. The reason is that the many interesting things it contains were only interesting in so far as they directly affected me. As soon as they cease to do that, they practically do not exist as far as I am concerned. And thus, this populous city, situated on the hills that border a great river, this ancient Gaulish town, this colony where the Romans built temples and a circus; this strong city that went through three memorable sieges, where two councils were held, which was enriched with a basilica, the crypt of which is still in existence, a cathedral, a college, sixteen parish churches, plus sixty chapels, a town hall, markets, hospitals, and palaces; this town which in very ancient times formed a part of the royal domain, became the capital of a vast province, and still bears on the fronton of the governor’s palace, now turned into barracks, the civic coat of arms surrounded by lions and the Virtues; this town which to-day contains an archbishop’s palace, a Faculty of Letters, a Faculty of Science, a Court of Appeal, and a Court of Justice; the chief town of a rich department only existed in reference to myself. It was peopled by myself alone; I was the only cause of its existence.