Good-day!"
"Good-day!" replies the "commandor," turning at the same time to his desk
again.
He had none the less treated me with undeserved kindness, and I was
grateful to him for it--and I would know how to appreciate it too. I made
a resolution not to return to him until I could take something with me,
that satisfied me perfectly; something that would astonish the "commandor"
a bit, and make him order me to be paid half-a-sovereign without a
moment's hesitation. I went home, and tackled my writing once more.
During the following evenings, as soon as it got near eight o'clock and
the gas was lit, the following thing happened regularly to me.
As I come out of my room to take a walk in the streets after the labour
and troubles of the day, a lady, dressed in black, stands under the
lamp-post exactly opposite my door.
She turns her face towards me and follows me with her eyes when I pass her
by--I remark that she always has the same dress on, always the same thick
veil that conceals her face and falls over her breast, and that she
carries in her hand a small umbrella with an ivory ring in the handle.
This was already the third evening I had seen her there, always in the
same place. As soon as I have passed her by she turns slowly and goes down
the street away from me. My nervous brain vibrated with curiosity, and I
became at once possessed by the unreasonable feeling that I was the object
of her visit.
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