After making a circuit of the lonely quarter, chanting meanwhile a melancholy hymn, they noiselessly re-entered the chapel.
There was no one in the street to see them save ourselves, and the thought came to me that neither was there any one in the gray heavens above to see them; the overcast sky seemed as lonely as the solitary street.

That little band of orphaned children intensified my feeling of sorrow and added to the disenchantment of the May night, and I had a consciousness of the vanity of prayer, of the emptiness of all things.
In the Marine Garden my sadness increased.

It was extremely cold, and we shivered in our light spring wraps.

There was not a single promenader to be seen.

The large chestnut trees all abloom and the foliage, in the glory of its tender hue, formed a feathery green and white avenue--emptiness was here too; all of this intertwined magnificence of branch and flower, seen of no one, unfolded itself to the indifferent sky that stretched above it cold and gray.