All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for Leon often threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out his arms, complained vaguely of life.
“ It’s because you don’t take enough recreation,” said the collector.
“ What recreation?”
“ If I were you I’d have a lathe.”
“ But I don’t know how to turn,” answered the clerk.
“ Ah! that’s true,” said the other, rubbing his chin with an air of mingled contempt and satisfaction.
Leon was weary of loving without any result; moreover he was beginning to feel that depression caused by the repetition of the same kind of life, when no interest inspires and no hope sustains it. He was so bored with Yonville and its inhabitants, that the sight of certain persons, of certain houses, irritated him beyond endurance; and the chemi
