M. de Monpavon walks to his death! He goes there by the long line of the boulevards, all on fire in the direction of the Madeleine, where he treads the elastic asphalt once more as a lounger, nose in the air, hands crossed behind. He has time; there is no hurry; he is master of the rendezvous. At each instant he smiles before him, waves a greeting from the ends of his fingers or makes the more formal bow we have just seen. Everything revives him, charms him, the noise of the watering-carts, the awnings of the _cafes_, pulled down to the middle of the foot-paths. The approach of death gives him the feelings of a convalescent accessible to all the delicacy, the hidden poesy of an exquisite hour of summer in the midst of Parisian life--of an exquisite hour--his last, and which he will prolong till night. No doubt it is for that reason that he passes the sumptuous establishment where he ordinarily takes his bath. He does not stop either at the Chinese Baths. He is too well known here. All Paris would know of it the same evening. There would be a scandal of bad taste, much coarse rumour about his death in the clubs and drawing-rooms. And the old sensualist, the well-bred man, wishes to spare himself this shame, to plunge and be swallowed up in the vague anonymity of suicide, like those soldiers who, after great battles, neither wounded, dead, or living, are simply put down as “missing.” That is why he has nothing on him which can be recognised, or furnish a hint to the inquiries of the police, why he seeks in this immense Paris the distant quarter where will open for him the terrible but oblivious confusion of the pauper’s grave. Already, since Monpavon has been walking, the aspect of the boulevard has changed. The crowd has become more compact, more active, and preoccupied, the houses smaller, marked with signs of commerce. When the gates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin are passed, with their overflow from the faubourgs, the provincial physiognomy of the town accentuates itself. The old beau no longer knows any one, and can congratulate himself on being unknown. The shopkeepers looking curiously after him, with his fine linen, his well-cut coat, and good figure, take him for some famous actor strolling on the boulevard--witness of his first triumphs--before the play begins. The wind freshens, the twilight softens the distances, and while the long road behind him still glitters, it grows darker now at every step--like the past, with its retrospections to him who looks back and regrets. It seems to Monpavon that he is walking into blackness. He shivers a little, but does not falter, and continues to walk with erect head and chest thrown out.