XXVI 
  
POOR FOLKS’ EYES 
  
  
AH, you would like to know why I hate you 
to-day; it would doubtless be less easy for you 
to understand than for me to explain, for you 
are, I think, the finest example of feminine 
denseness that one might meet in a long day’s 
march. 
We had passed a long day together which 
had seemed short to me; we had promised 
ourselves that we should have all our thoughts 
in common, and that thenceforward our two 
souls should be no more than one. A dream 
which has nothing original about it, after all, 
unless it be that, imagines by all men, it has 
been realized by none. 
In the evening you were a little tired, and 
wanted to sit down in front of a new café at 
the corner of a new boulevard; still full of rub-
bish, and already proudly displaying its unfin-
ished splendours. The café sparkled; the gas 
itself flamed with all the enthusiasm of a first 
night, and lighted up with all its power the 
walls blinding with whiteness, the glittering