ON 15 September 1840, at around six o'clock in the morning, La Ville-de-Montereau, almost ready to leave, was puffing out thick clouds of smoke alongside the Quai Saint-Bernard. Passengers were arriving, out of breath; barrels, ropes, baskets of washing got in their way; the sailors made answer to no one; people bumped into one another; packages were piling up between the paddle boxes; and the din on the quay was absorbed in the hissing of the steam escaping through the metal plates, enveloping everything in a whitish mist, while the bell in the ship's bows sounded its insistent clanging. At last the ship left, and the two riverbanks, lined with shops, workers' yards, and factories, slipped away like two wide ribbons being unspooled. A young man of eighteen with long hair, holding a notebook under his arm, stood near the helm, not moving. He gazed through the mist at the church towers, at the buildings he could not put a name to; then in one last glance he embraced the Ile Saint-Louis, the Cité, Notre-Dame; and before long, as Paris disappeared, he heaved a deep sigh. Monsieur Frédéric Moreau, having just passed his baccalaureate, was going back to Nogent-sur-Seine to idle away two months before going to read for the Bar. His mother had sent him, with the necessary sum of money, to Le Havre to visit an uncle who, she hoped, would leave him something in his will; he had returned only the night before; and he was making up for not being able to stay in the capital by taking the longest route back to his home in the provinces. The noise subsided; they had all found seats; but some remained standing close to the engine, warming themselves, and the funnel spat out, with a slow, rhythmic rattle, its plume of black smoke; tiny drops of dew trickled down the brass; the deck shuddered with a dull internal vibration and the two paddle wheels, turning at speed, churned up the water. The riverbank had little sandy shores on either side.
Sometimes they came across timber rafts and set them rocking with their wash; in his rowing boat a man sat fishing; then the drifts of fog melted, the sun appeared, and the hill, which followed the course of the Seine on the right, gradually fell away, while another, closer, rose up on the opposite bank. On it was a crown of trees, amongst low houses with Italianate roofs. They had sloping gardens separated by newly built walls, wrought-iron fences, lawns, hothouses, and large pots of geraniums spaced at regular intervals on terraces you could lean over. Many a man, at the sight of those peaceful, stylish residences, felt the desire to be the owner of one, to see out his days there with a nice billiard room, a rowing boat, a wife—or some other pipe dream. The rather novel pleasure of a boat trip encouraged passengers to exchange confidences. The more droll amongst them were already beginning to laugh and tell jokes. Many sang songs. They were jolly together. They offered one another a drop to drink. Frédéric thought of his room at home, the kind of play he might write, the pictures he might paint, and of future passions. The happiness his noble soul deserved seemed a long time coming. He recited melancholy verses to himself; he paced rapidly up and down the deck; he went to the far end by the ship's bell, and saw a man, in a group of passengers and sailors, flirting with a country girl, while fondling the gold crucifix she was wearing on her breast. He was a curly-haired fellow of some forty years.