MORCOL (sitting on a bank of the Seine, watching the water flow by).
I’m in a Corneillian situation. M. Lubert has once again engaged me to find Icarus, a mission with which M. Surget has also entrusted me. If I find Icarus, to whom shall I return him? This seems to be a question of conscience, but in the meantime I have a foot, as they say, in both camps. I went to the Globe and Two Worlds Tavern which he used to frequent in the days when I’d got his name wrong, but he hasn’t been back there, any more than has the little grisette I saw him with at the Café Anglais. He hasn’t been seen at the Café Anglais either, and I had enough trouble finding even that out. As a criminal always returns to the scene of his crime, and even though Icarus cannot be considered, even in the strictest sense, to be a criminal, I can see no other trail than the Bois de Boulogne where he jumped so courageously, a courage that was perhaps unconscious, at the head of Mme de Champvaux’s horses, of which act the lady then came to inform me, and make the bargain which enabled me to return the fugitive to M. Lubert’s pages. Yes, the Bois de Boulogne seems indicated for my preliminary research, even though it is fairly extensive, 872 hectares, if I have been accurately informed.