He entered Rouen just as ten o’clock was striking, stopped as he always did at the Bon-Enfant hotel, Rue des Trois-Mares, submitted to the kiss of the landlord, the landlady, and their five sons, for the sad news was known: then, he had to give details of the accident, and that made him weep; he had to give refuse the services of all these people, officious because they knew that he was rich, and even to refuse their lunch, which offended them.

Then, having dusted his hat, brushed his coat, and rubbed up his boots, he began to look for the Rue de l’Éperlan, without daring to make inquiries of anybody, for fear of being recognized and arousing suspicions.

In the end, not finding it, he saw a priest, and trusting the professional discretion of the churchman, he asked information from him.

He had only a hundred yards to go, it was in fact the second road to the right.

Then, he hesitated. Up to that moment, he had obeyed like a brute beast the will of the dead man. Now he felt all upset, confused, humiliated at the idea of finding himself, he, the son, before the woman who had been his father’s mistress. All the morality which lies deep in us, heaped up at the bottom of our feelings by centuries of hereditary teaching, all that he had learned since his catechism days about creatures of evil life, the instinctive contempt that every man bears in himself towards them, even if he marries one, all his limited peasant honour, all that stirred in him, held him back, made him blushing and ashamed.

But he thought: ‘I promised my father. I mustn’t fail’. Then he pushed the half-opened door of the house marked with the number 18, discovered a dark stairway, mounted three floors, saw a door, then another, found the bell rope and pulled it.

The ding-dong that echoed in the neighbouring room, caused a shudder to pass up his body. The door opened and he found himself in front of a very well dressed young woman, dark, with a warm complexion, who looked at him with bewildered eyes.

He didn’t know what to say to her, and she, who didn’t suspect anything, and who was expecting the other one, did not invite him to come in. They looked at each other so for about half a minute.

At last she asked:

‘What do you want, sir?’

He murmured:

‘I am Hautot Junior.’

She gave a start, turned pale, and stammered as if she had known him for a long while:

‘Mr. Cæsar?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then?’

‘I have something to say to you on behalf of my father.’

She said: ‘Oh, my God!’ and drew back so that he could enter. He shut the door and followed her.

Then he saw a little boy of four or five who was playing with a cat, sitting on the ground before a stove from which rose the steam of dishes being kept warm.

‘Sit down,’ she said.