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Place du Trocadéro, loitered a moment among the people at the end of the Avenue Henri-Martin, then, making up her mind, went into the Cimetière de Passy.
    She walked slowly between the gravestones, and Flavières could have sworn she was just continuing her walk. She had branched off almost at once from the central alley with its solemn row of crosses in marble and bronze. She went along the little paths, looking casually about her—at the black lettering on the stones, the rusty railings round a vault, the sudden splash of colour where some flowers had recently been left. Sparrows hopped about in front of her. The roar and clatter of the town seemed to come, filtered, from far away. One might have been transported to some other country on the marginof this life of ours. There was no one to be seen, though many to be felt, each inscription conjuring up an unseen presence.
    Amongst them and their stony monuments, Madeleine walked on, her shadow striking between the gravestones or zigzagging up the steps of one of those little chapels over a vault, in which crumbling cherubs kept their vigil. Sometimes she stopped for a moment to read some half-effaced inscription.
    FAMILLE MERCIER
    ALPHONSE MERCADIER
    Il fut bon père et bon époux
    There were some gravestones tumbling over sideways like shipwrecked boats. On others lizards basked in the warmth, their throats palpitating, their serpents’ heads lifted towards the sun. Madeleine seemed to feel quite at home in this neglected corner, where no relations ever came. She went on along the path which presently took her right into the heart of the cemetery. She stooped to pick up a red tulip, fallen from a vase, and still with the same leisurely gait went up to one of the graves and stopped. Hidden behind a mausoleum, Flavières was able to watch her at his ease. Madeleine’s face showed neither exaltation nor sorrow. On the contrary, the expression on it was one of peace and happiness. What thoughts were running through her mind? Her arms hung limply at her sides; her fingers still held the tulip. Once again she looked like a portrait, her whole being turned inwards, lost in some interior contemplation.
    The word ‘ecstasy’ occurred to Flavières. Was this one of those ‘attacks’ Gévigne had spoken of? Had Madeleine gone off into some sort of mystic trance? No. A mystic trance hadcertain characteristic symptoms not present here. It was something much simpler: Madeleine must be praying for someone, some member of her family no doubt whose memory was still fresh in her mind, though the tomb looked old enough and quite neglected. That was odd.
    Flavières looked at his watch. She had been standing there nearly a quarter of an hour—twelve minutes, to be exact. Now she went back into the central alley, looking around her with the same appearance of being mildly interested, as though in the matter of funereal architecture she had nothing to learn. As he passed, Flavières read the inscription she had been contemplating. It was very short, just:
    PAULINE LAGERLAC
    1840–1865
    That, of course, was the name he had expected, but that didn’t make any difference: he was profoundly moved. Gévigne was right: there was something incomprehensible in Madeleine’s conduct—in the way she had stood at the grave, for instance, with neither bowed head nor folded hands, much as a person might stand gazing at the house in which he was born.
    He brushed aside that absurd idea, which filled him with a vague uneasiness, and hurried on to overtake her. She was still holding the tulip. She walked down towards the Seine. Again she seemed to droop. Perhaps she was just tired. On the quays, she walked as though aimlessly, as though lost in thought, looking at the rippling water sparkling with points of light. It was hot. Men walked by with their hats in their hands, wiping their foreheads. The water was very blue against thegrey stone quays, on which a few tramps lay sleeping. The first swallows