Explore "The Test" by Guy De Maupassant on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He went at once to the station, took his ticket, climbed into a carriage and when he felt himself being swept along by the train which was running down hill at Pecq, he felt a stab of fear, a sort of giddiness at the thought of his audacity. To keep himself from weakening, from backing out of it and returning alone, he strove to give up thinking about it any more, to seek distraction in other thoughts, to do what he had planned to do with a blind determination, and he set himself to hum songs from the operettas and the music-halls all the way to Paris in order to stifle his thoughts.
He became the prey of impulses to withdraw from the affair as soon as he had in front of him the pavements that would lead him to Tancret's street. He loitered in front of several shops, priced some of the things, took an interest in various new things, was seized with a desire to drink a bock, which was hardly one of his habits, and as he approached his friend's house, he felt the strongest possible wish not to meet him.