They went out so rarely that he had never seen them before. He was overwhelmed at the sight of their pinched, solemn frames, walking along at a measured pace, greeted by deep bows and replying with the merest nod. Then, Julien’s friend informed him in rapid succession that they had a daughter still at convent school, Mlle Thérèse de Marsanne, and that young Colombel, the clerk of M. Savournin the lawyer, had been suckled by the same wet-nurse. And indeed, as the two elderly people were turning into the rue Sainte-Anne, young Colombel, who was just passing, went up, and the Marquis proffered him his hand, an honour he had shown no one else. Julien was jealous at this handshake, for this Colombel, a youth of twenty, bright-eyed and mean-mouthed, had been his enemy for a long time. He teased Julien for his timidity, and set all the washerwomen of the rue Beau-Soleil against him – with the result that one day, on the ramparts, they had challenged each other to a fist-fight, from which the lawyer’s clerk had emerged with two black eyes. And the evening he found out these new details, Julien played his flute even more softly.

Yet he did not allow his obsession with the Marsanne house to disturb his habits, still as regular as clockwork. He continued to go to his office, to have lunch and dinner, to go for his usual walk by the Chanteclair. The house itself, with its vast peacefulness, finally became one more part of his life’s even tenor. Two years went by. He was so used to the sight of the grass growing on the steps, the grey façade, the black shutters, that these things seemed to him to be definitive, necessary to the slumber of the neighbourhood.

Julien had been living on the Place des Quatre-Femmes for five years when, one July evening, an event turned his life upside down. The night was very warm and lit with bright stars. He was playing his flute in the dark, but absentmindedly, slowing down and almost dozing off at certain notes, when suddenly, right opposite, a window of the Marsanne house opened, a slash of brilliant light in the dark façade. A young girl had come to lean out, and remained at the window: he could see her slender outline, she seemed to be looking across, lending an attentive ear. Julien, trembling, had stopped playing. He couldn’t make out the girl’s face, he could see only her flowing hair, already let down round her neck. And a light voice came to him through the silence.

‘Didn’t you hear that, Françoise? It sounded like music.’

‘It must be a nightingale, mademoiselle,’ replied a rough voice from within. ‘Close the shutters, don’t let in the night creatures.’

Once the façade had become black once more, Julien was unable to leave his armchair, his eyes still dazzled by the gash of light in the wall that up until then had been dead. And he couldn’t stop shaking, wondering if he should be pleased at this apparition. Then, an hour later, he resumed his quiet flute-playing. The thought that the young girl doubtless imagined there was a nightingale in the chestnut trees made him smile.

2

Next day, at the post office, the latest news was that Mlle Thérèse de Marsanne had just left her convent school. Julien told no one he had seen her with her hair down and her neck bare. He was in a state of great disquiet; he felt an indefinable hostility towards this young girl, who was going to upset his habits. Certainly, that window would annoy him terribly: he would dread seeing its shutters opening at all hours. He would no longer feel at home, he would even have preferred a man than a woman to live opposite, since women are more prone to make fun. How would he find the courage to play his flute now? He played too badly to please a lady who was bound to know about music. So, that evening, after turning it over and over in his mind, he was sure he hated Thérèse.

Julien returned home furtively. He didn’t light a candle. That way, she wouldn’t see him.