“Quarter-past two,” he thought, “I shall not be home before three. Madame Greslon ought to be there at four. I shall not be able to do any work. That is very disagreeable.” And he resolved on the spot to take his daily walk, the more readily that he could reach the Jardin des Plantes along the river and through the city, whose old physiognomy and quiet peacefulness he loved. The sky was blue with the clear blue of frosty days, vaguely tinted with violet at the horizon. The Seine flowed under the bridges green and gayly laborious, with its loaded boats on which smoked the chimneys of small wooden houses whose windows were adorned with familiar plants. The horses trotted swiftly over the dry pavement. If the philosopher saw all these details in the time that he took to reach the sidewalk of the quay, with the precaution of a provincial afraid of the carriages, it was for him a sensation even more unconscious than usual. He continued to think of the surprising revelation which the judge had just made to him; but a philosopher’s head is a machine so peculiar that events do not produce the direct and simple impression which seems natural to other persons. This one was composed of three individuals fitted into one; there was the simple-minded, Sixte, an old bachelor, a slave to the scrupulous care of his servant and anxious first of all for his material tranquillity. Then there was the philosophical polemic, the author, animated, unknown to himself, by a ferocious self-love common to all writers. And last, the great psychologist, passionately attached to the problems of the inner life; and in order that an idea should accomplish its full action upon this mind, it was necessary for it to pass through these three compartments. From the Palais de Justice to the first step on the border of the Seine, it was the bourgeois who reasoned: “Yes,” said he to himself, repeating the words which the sight of the clock had called forth, “that is very disagreeable. A whole day lost, and why? I wonder what I have to do with all that story, of assassination, and what information my testimony has brought to the examination!” He did not suspect that, in the hands of a skillful advocate, his theory of crime and responsibility might become the most formidable of weapons against Greslon. “It was not worth the trouble to disturb me,” continued he. “But these people have no idea of the life of a man who writes. What a stupid that judge was with his imbecile questions! I hope I shall not have to go to Riom to appear before some others of the same sort!”