He replied, “Oh! in the forest at home there was nothing but deer, foxes, and wild boars, and here and there the hut of a forester.”
This word, akin to the dead man’s name, issuing from his mouth, surprised him just as if someone had shouted it out to him from the depths of a thicket, and he became suddenly silent, assailed anew by the strange and persistent uneasiness, and gnawing, invincible, jealous irritation that had been spoiling his existence for some time past. After a minute or so, he asked: “Did you ever come here like this of an evening with Charles?”
“Yes, often,” she answered.
And all of a sudden he was seized with a wish to return home, a nervous desire that gripped him at the heart. But the image of Forestier had returned to his mind and possessed and laid hold of him.