I have nothing to keep me here. [No job, not since he resigned from his commission and stepped down from his post after that night at the barricades. There will be no work for him here in future either, not with his dogged, fearsome reputation for being merciless and stubborn. No family to speak of, no friends who care to keep his company.]

[What is there for him in Paris but a room he cannot afford and memories he'd rather forget?] And I hear there is work for longshoreman in Calais or Marseille. I may go there.