The hours strike and I have the impression that they are useless, that one will do nothing with them.
I steer in the direction of the fine gardens which slope towards the river.

A little enviously I look over the walls at the tops of these opulent enclosures, at the tips of those great branches where still clings the soiled, out-of-fashion finery of last summer.
Far from there, and a good while after, I encounter Tudor, the clerk at the Modern Pharmacy.

He hesitates and doubts, and does not know where to go.

Every Sunday he wears the same collar, with turned down corners, and it is becoming gloomy.

Arrived where I am, he stops, as though it occurred to him that nothing was pushing him forward.