not
accustomed to that sort of thing. Yes, I do nothing; I let things
slide, and I am growing old. In dying I shall have nothing to regret.
If so, I should remember nothing, outside this public-house. I have no
wife, no children, no cares, no sorrows, nothing. That is the very best
thing that could happen to one."

He then emptied the glass which had been brought him, passed his tongue
over his lips, and resumed his pipe.

I looked at him stupefied and asked him:

"But you have not always been like that?"

"Pardon me, sir; ever since I left college."

"It is not a proper life to lead, my dear sir; it is simply horrible.
Come, you must indeed have done something, you must have loved
something, you must have friends."

"No; I get up at noon, I come here, I have my breakfast, I drink my
'bock'; I remain until the evening, I have my dinner, I drink 'bock.'
Then about one in the morning, I return to my couch, because the place
closes up. And it is this latter that embitters me more than anything.
For the last ten years, I have passed six-tenths of my time on this
bench, in my corner; and the other four-tenths in my bed, never
changing. I talk sometimes with the habitues."

"But on arriving in Paris what did you do at first?"

"I paid my devoirs to the Cafe de Medicis."

"What next?"

"Next? I crossed the water and came here."

"Why did you take even that trouble?"

"What do you mean? One cannot remain all one's life in the Latin
Quarter. The students make too much noise. But I do not move about any
longer. Waiter, a 'bock.'"

I now began to think that he was making fun of me, and I continued:

"Come now, be frank. You have been the victim of some great sorrow;
despair in love, no doubt! It is easy to see that you are a man whom
misfortune has hit hard. What age are you?"

"I am thirty years of age, but I look to be forty-five at least."

I looked him straight in the face. His shrunken figure, badly cared
for, gave one the impression that he was an old man. On the summit of
his cranium, a few long hairs shot straight up from a skin of doubtful
cleanness. He had enormous eyelashes, a large mustache, and a thick
beard. Suddenly I had a kind of vision, I know not why--the vision of a
basin filled with noisome water, the water which should have been
applied to that poll. I said to him:

"Verily, you look to be more than that age. Of a certainty you must
have experienced some great disappointment."

He repl