He wanted to go to bed straight away, to show what a bad mood he was in. But he couldn’t resist the need to know what was going on opposite. The window didn’t open. Only around ten o’clock did a pale light finally gleam between the slats of the shutters; then the gleam was extinguished, and he was left gazing at the dark window. From then on, every evening, he resumed this espionage, in spite of himself. He kept the house under surveillance; as he had at first, he strained every nerve to pick up the tiniest tremors that gave life to its old mute stones. Nothing seemed changed, the house continued to sleep its deep sleep; you needed expert ears and eyes to catch a hint of the new life there. Sometimes, there was a flicker of light moving behind the windows, the corner of a curtain was lifted, giving him a glimpse into a huge room. At other times, light footsteps could be heard crossing the garden, the distant sound of a piano reached him, accompanying a voice singing; or the sounds remained even vaguer, a simple passing ripple pointing to the beating of a young heart in the old dwelling. Julien explained his curiosity to himself as the result of his great irritation at all this noise. How he missed the time when the empty house echoed back the subdued sound of his flute!

One of his most avid desires, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, was to see Thérèse again. He imagined her in his mind’s eye, pink-faced, mocking, her eyes gleaming. But as he never ventured to his window in daylight, he caught a glimpse of her only at night, when she was swallowed up in the grey shadows. One morning, as he was closing one of his shutters to keep the sun out, he caught sight of Thérèse standing in the middle of her room. He remained rooted to the spot, not daring to move a muscle. She seemed to be thinking something over, she was very tall, very pale, her face classically beautiful. And he felt almost intimidated by her, she was so different from the light-hearted image he had formed of her. Especially noticeable was her mouth, rather large with bright-red lips, and deep eyes, dark and lustreless, which gave her the appearance of a cruel queen. Slowly, she came over to the window; but she didn’t seem to see him, as if he were too far off, too indistinct. She moved away, and the swing of her head was so powerful in its grace that he felt weaker than a child in comparison with her, for all his broad shoulders. When he got to know her, he feared her all the more.

Thus began for the young man a wretched existence. This beautiful young lady, so grave and noble, who lived near him, drove him to despair. She never looked at him, she was unaware of his existence. But this did not stop his heart quailing at the thought that she might notice him and find him ridiculous. His pathological shyness made him think that she was spying on his every move so as to make fun of him. He would scurry home with his tail between his legs, and in his room he avoided moving about. Then, after a month, he started to suffer from the girl’s disdain. Why didn’t she ever look at him? She would come over to the window, let her dark eyes wander across the deserted cobbles, and then withdraw, without guessing that he was there, filled with anxiety, on the other side of the square. And just as he had trembled at the idea of being seen by her, now he quivered with the need to feel her fix her gaze on him. She was at the forefront of his thoughts every hour of his life.

When Thérèse got up in the morning, he, who had once been so punctual, forgot all about his office.