In the days gone by, we had written our two names on the window frame.

“Come and see. They are still there,” she said. “I don’t think anybody has ever noticed them. How old were you then?”

Underneath our names we had written the date. I calculated:

“Twenty-eight.”

“And I was sixteen. Ten years ago.”

The moment was not very suitable for awakening these memories; I tried to turn the conversation, while she with a kind of uneasy insistence continually brought me back to it; then suddenly, as though she were afraid of growing emotional, she asked me if I remembered Strouvilhou?

Strouvilhou in those days was an independent boarder who was a great nuisance to her parents. He was supposed to be attending lectures, but when he was asked which ones, or what examinations he was studying for, he used to answer negligently:

“I vary.”

At first people pretended to take his insolences for jokes, in an attempt to make them appear less cutting, and he would himself accompany them by a loud laugh; but his laugh soon became more sarcastic, and his witticisms more aggressive, and I could never understand why or how the pastor could put up with such an individual as boarder, unless it were for financial reasons, or because he had a feeling that was half affection, half pity, for Strouvilhou, and perhaps a vague hope that he might end by persuading—I mean converting—him. I couldn’t understand either why Strouvilhou stayed on at the pension, when he might so easily have gone elsewhere; for he didn’t appear to have any sentimental reason, like me; perhaps it was because of the evident pleasure he took in his passages with the poor pastor, who defended himself badly and always got the worst of it.

“Do you remember one day when he asked Papa if he kept his coat on underneath his gown, when he preached?”

“Yes, indeed. He asked him so insinuatingly that your poor father was completely taken in. It was at table. I can remember it all as if …”

“And Papa ingenuously answered that his gown was rather thin and that he was afraid of catching cold without his coat.”

“And then Strouvilhou’s air of deep distress! And how he had to be pressed before he ended by saying, that of course it was of ‘very little importance,’ but that when your father gesticulated in preaching, the sleeves of his coat showed underneath his gown and that it had rather an unfortunate effect on some of the congregation.”

“And after that, poor Papa preached a whole sermon with his arms glued to his sides, so that none of his oratorical effects came off.”

“And the Sunday after that he came home with a bad cold, because he had taken his coat off. Oh! and the discussion about the barren fig-tree in the Gospel and about trees that don’t bear fruit.… ‘I’m not a fruit-tree. What I bear is shade. Monsieur le Pasteur, I cast you into the shade.’ ”

“He said that too at table.”

“Of course. He never appeared except at meals.”

“And he said it in such a spiteful way too. It was that that made grandfather turn him out. Do you remember how he suddenly rose to his feet, though he usually sat all the time with his nose in his plate, and pointed to the door with his outstretched arm, and shouted: ‘Leave the room!’ ”

“He looked enormous—terrifying; he was enraged. I really believe Strouvilhou was frightened.”

“He flung his napkin on to the table and disappeared. He went off without paying us; we never saw him again.”

“I wonder what has become of him.”

“Poor grandfather!” Laura went on rather sadly. “How I admired him that day! He’s very fond of you, you know. You ought to go up and pay him a little visit in his study. I am sure you would give him a great deal of pleasure.”

I write down the whole of this at once, as I know by experience how difficult it is to recall the tone of a dialogue after any interval. But from that moment I began to listen to Laura less attentively. I had just noticed—some way off, it is true—Olivier, whom I had lost sight of when Laura drew me into her father’s study. His eyes were shining and his face extraordinarily animated. I heard afterwards that Sarah had been amusing herself by making him drink six glasses of champagne, in succession. Armand was with him, and they were both following Sarah and an English girl of the same age as Sarah, who has been boarding with the family for over a year—pursuing them from group to group. At last Sarah and her friend left the room, and through the open door I saw the two boys rush upstairs after them. In my turn, I was on the point of leaving the room in response to Laura’s request, when she made a movement towards me:

“Wait, Edouard, there’s one thing more …” and her voice suddenly became very grave. “It’ll probably be a long time before we see each other again.