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of the last green-and-white bus in a street that already seemed like a highway.
    After that, Monsieur Monde stopped thinking. The rhythm of the train took possession of him. It was like some music with a regular beat, the words for which were provided by scraps of phrases, memories, the passing images that met his eyes, a lonely cottage in the countryside where a stout woman was washing clothes, a stationmaster waving his red flag in a toy station, people passing ceaselessly by him on their way to the toilet, a child crying in the next compartment and one of the soldiers asleep in his corner, his mouth wide open in a ray of sunlight.
    He did not know where he was going or what he would do. He had set off. Nothing lay behind him any more: nothing lay before him as yet. He was in space.
    He felt hungry. Everyone was eating. At a station he bought some dry sandwiches and a bottle of beer.
    At Lyons it was dark already. He nearly got off the train, without knowing why, tempted to plunge right away into the spangled darkness, but the train moved off again before he had time to make up his mind.
    There were so many things within him that he must settle later, when he’d got used to it, when the train stopped, when he reached some destination at last.
    He was not afraid. He had no regrets. In most of the compartments the lights had been put out. People had fallen asleep leaning against one another, mingling their smells and their breath.
    He dared not, as yet. And despite his weariness he went on standing in the drafty corridor. He kept his eyes averted from the next coach, where red carpets could be glimpsed.
    Avignon … He stared in amazement at the big clock, which said only nine o’clock.… From time to time he cast a glance into his compartment, where he had left his suitcase in the rack beside various odd bundles.
    Marseilles …
    He went on foot, very slowly, toward the harbor. The big brasseries of La Canebière were still open. He stared at them with a sort of amazement, particularly at the men whom he could see through the lighted windows, sitting around their tables, as though he found it strange that life still went on.
    These people were at their usual tables, as on any other evening. They had been in no train. They had just finished playing cards or billiards, or talking politics, and they were calling the waiter, or else the waiter, who knew them all by name, was telling them that it was closing time.
    Some of them were coming out already, lingering on the edge of the sidewalk to finish the conversation they had begun, shaking hands, going off in various directions, each of them toward his home, his wife, his bed.
    Iron shutters clattered down over windows. In the Old Port district, too, the little bars were being closed.
    He saw the water quite close to him, small boats packed close together and lifted by the gently breathing sea. Reflected lights stretched out, and somebody was rowing, yes, even at this hour somebody was rowing in the cool darkness of the dock, somebody who was not alone, for there was a sound of whispering voices. Lovers, perhaps, or else smugglers?
    He turned up the collar of his overcoat, the overcoat that was still unfamiliar to him, the feel of which he could not recognize. He raised his head to look at the starry sky. A woman brushed up against him, saying something, and he moved quickly away, took a small street to the right, and caught sight of the lighted doorway of a hotel.
    It was warm inside, even in the entrance hall. There was a mahogany reception desk and a formal-looking gentleman in black, who asked him:
    â€œAre you alone?”
    He was offered a pad of registration forms, and after a moment’s hesitation he wrote down some name or other, the first that came into his mind.
    â€œWe still have one room vacant overlooking the Old Port.”
    The clerk picked up the little suitcase and Monsieur Monde felt ashamed. Surely the man must be surprised at the