He pursued the quest as far as the Maison
Doree, burst twice into Tortoni's and, still without catching sight of
her, was emerging from the Cafe Anglais, striding with haggard gaze
towards his carriage, which was waiting for him at the corner of the
Boulevard des Italiens, when he collided with a person coming in the
opposite direction; it was Odette; she explained, later, that there had
been no room at Prevost's, that she had gone, instead, to sup at the
Maison Doree, and had been sitting there in an alcove where he must have
overlooked her, and that she was now looking for her carriage.
She had so little expected to see him that she started back in alarm. As
for him, he had ransacked the streets of Paris, not that he supposed it
possible that he should find her, but because he would have suffered even
more cruelly by abandoning the attempt. But now the joy (which, his reason
had never ceased to assure him, was not, that evening at least, to be
realised) was suddenly apparent, and more real than ever before; for he
himself had contributed nothing to it by anticipating probabilities,--it
remained integral and external to himself; there was no need for him to
draw on his own resources to endow it with truth--'twas from itself that
there emanated, 'twas itself that projected towards him that truth whose
glorious rays melted and scattered like the cloud of a dream the sense of
loneliness which had lowered over him, that truth upon which he had
supported, nay founded, albeit unconsciously, his vision of bliss.
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