He struck away across the Seine

　　At the lawyer's he was told that, as a first step to freedom, hemust secure a domicile in Paris. He had of course known of thisnecessity: he had seen too many friends through the DivorceCourt, in one country or another, not to be fairly familiar withthe procedure. But the fact presented a different aspect assoon as he tried to relate it to himself and Susy: it was asthough Susy's personality were a medium through which eventsstill took on a transfiguring colour. He found the "domicile"that very day: a tawdrily furnished rez-de-chaussee, obviouslydestined to far different uses. And as he sat there, after theconcierge had discreetly withdrawn with the first quarter'spayment in her pocket, and stared about him at the vulgar plushyplace, he burst out laughing at what it was about to figure inthe eyes of the law: a Home, and a Home desecrated by his ownact! The Home in which he and Susy had reared their precariousbliss, and seen it crumble at the brutal touch of hisunfaithfulness and his cruelty--for he had been told that hemust be cruel to her as well as unfaithful! He looked at thewalls hung with sentimental photogravures, at the shiny bronze"nudes," the moth-eaten animal-skins and the bedizened bed-andonce more the unreality, the impossibility, of all that washappening to him entered like a drug into his veins.
　　To rouse himself he stood up, turned the key on the hideousplace, and returned to his lawyer's. He knew that in the harddry atmosphere of the office the act of giving the address ofthe flat would restore some kind of reality to the phantasmaltransaction. And with wonder he watched the lawyer, as a matterof course, pencil the street and the number on one of the papersenclosed in a folder on which his own name was elaboratelyengrossed.
　　As he took leave it occurred to him to ask where Susy wasliving. At least he imagined that it had just occurred to him,and that he was making the enquiry merely as a measure ofprecaution, in order to know what quarter of Paris to avoid; butin reality the question had been on his lips since he had firstentered the office, and lurking in his mind since he had emergedfrom the railway station that morning. The fact of not knowingwhere she lived made the whole of Paris a meaninglessunintelligible place, as useless to him as the face of a hugeclock that has lost its hour hand.
　　The address in Passy surprised him: he had imagined that shewould be somewhere in the neighborhood of the Champs Elysees orthe Place de l'Etoile. But probably either Mrs. Melrose orEllie Vanderlyn had taken a house at Passy. Well--it wassomething of a relief to know that she was so far off. Nobusiness called him to that almost suburban region beyond theTrocadero, and there was much less chance of meeting her than ifshe had been in the centre of Paris.
　　All day he wandered, avoiding the fashionable quarters, thestreets in which private motors glittered five deep, and furredand feathered silhouettes glided from them into tea-rooms,picture-galleries and jewellers' shops. In some such scenesSusy was no doubt figuring: slenderer, finer, vivider, than theother images of clay, but imitating their gestures, chatteringtheir jargon, winding her hand among the same pearls and sables.
　　He struck away across the Seine, along the quays to the Cite,the net-work of old Paris, the great grey vaults of St.
　　Eustache, the swarming streets of the Marais. He gazed atmonuments dawdled before shop-windows, sat in squares and onquays, watching people bargain, argue, philander, quarrel, work-girls stroll past in linked bands, beggars whine on the bridges,derelicts doze in the pale winter sun, mothers in mourninghasten by taking children to school, and street-walkers beattheir weary rounds before the cafes.
　　The day drifted on. Toward evening he began to grow afraid ofhis solitude, and to think of dining at the Nouveau Luxe, orsome other fashionable restaurant where he would be fairly sureto meet acquaintances, and be carried off to a theatre, a boiteor a dancing-hall. Anything, anything now, to get away from themaddening round of his thoughts. He felt the same blank fear ofsolitude as months ago in Genoa .... Even if he were to runacross Susy and Altringham, what of it? Better get the jobover. People had long since ceased to take on tragedy airsabout divorce: dividing couples dined together to the last, andmet afterward in each other's houses, happy in the consciousnessthat their respective remarriages had provided two new centresof entertainment. Yet most of the couples who took their re-matings so philosophically had doubtless had their hour ofenchantment, of belief in the immortality of loving; whereas heand Susy had simply and frankly entered into a business contractfor their mutual advantage. The fact gave the last touch ofincongruity to his agonies and exaltations, and made him appearto himself as grotesque and superannuated as the hero of aromantic novel.