of horror froze him, and he went away in a state bordering on

imbecility, feeling as though there were a great void in his brain.

It was only in his own room above his mother's flat in the Rue

Richelieu that his heart broke in a storm of furious sobs. This

time there could be no doubt about the state of things; a horrible

picture of Nana in Philippe's arms kept rising before his mind's

eye. It struck him in the light of an incest. When he fancied

himself calm again the remembrance of it all would return, and in