Madame Lemercier leaves the narrator alone in his new rented room at the Lemercier family boarding house after explaining its practical and moral advantages. Standing before the mirror, he studies both the drab, dust-scented room and his own reflection. The worn furniture, threadbare carpet, and darkened walls show the physical traces of countless predecessors who have passed through this space like smoke. Having recently relocated from the provinces to Paris to start a new job at a bank, he reflects on his life as he approaches his thirtieth birthday. Being unmarried, parentless, and without grand desires, he considers himself generally content and free from complicated regrets, viewing his outer appearance as reserved and completely ordinary.
As evening falls and rain patters outside, a sudden sense of melancholy and fatigue creeps over him, leading him to reflect on his relationship with Josette, a young woman working in a fashion house in Tours whom he loves yet sometimes finds repulsive. He contemplates human mortality, realizing he has never truly faced his own eventual death. Suddenly, the sound of a hunting horn echoes from the street below, startling him and instantly evoking powerful childhood memories of the countryside. This unexpected sonic reminder of his past fills him with a sudden wave of despair, making him feel that his life is already slipping away and that he can never recapture his lost youth.
Overwhelmed by his empty routine and growing existential dread, his imagination flares with grandiose, impossible desires for extraordinary travel, deep love, and immense glory. He yearns for escape from his quiet insignificance, dreaming of exotic shores, roaring trains, and public adoration. However, these childish fantasies quickly fade as he confronts his own limitations and quiet captivity in the darkening room. Overcome by a sudden surge of longing for things he can never possess, he collapses backward against the bed, crying out in despair.