BUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER is unlikely to marry a woman with houses. He seems to have few prospects at all, of any kind. He lacks coordination; he tries to but cannot grow a moustache; his pictures are of an uneven quality. When he speaks, he has trouble looking one in the eye. But his hand had not trembled. What a surprise that had been: a most touching surprise.
The whole world is bent on surprising M. Pujol. There is a conspiracy afoot, it seems, a conspiracy to gratify him. From the far field comes a cracking, a whistling, and after that, silence; the handsaw is now abandoned in the grass, the task completed, and as if startled by the cessation of that gnawing sound, the crow shakes its wings and takes to the air, and as if released, at last, by the little spring with which the crow leaves its perch, the branch shudders, the leaves quiver, and a sickly yellow specimen comes spinning down from the sky.
The flatulent man looks about him in astonishment. Could the universe be capable of such kindness? Clambering atop his travelling case, he clears his throat; he prepares a greeting; he wonders if to wave his arms would throw off his balance.
He will cry out, Adrien! and the young man will turn around and look at him.
But oh, surprise: the stern Impossible! The photographer is no longer there. The crown of his head does not float above the privet hedge, nor do his pale frantic fingers. Nothing of him remains visible; he has sunk beneath the privet hedge like a ship, or a sun. M. Pujol, stranded on his travelling case, is left to search the horizon and wonder. He was just here, he protests. How could I have lost him?