father whom I did not wish to see again.

"I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot of a
tree, if the guard had not discovered me and led me away by force.

"I found my parents wearing their ordinary aspect. My mother alone spoke
to me:

"'How you have frightened me, you naughty boy; I have been the whole
night sleepless.'

"I did not answer, but began to weep. My father did not utter a single
word.

"Eight days later I entered college.

"Well, my friend, it was all over with me. I had witnessed the other side
of things, the bad side; I have not been able to perceive the good side
since that day. What things have passed in my mind, what strange
phenomena has warped my ideas? I do not know. But I no longer have a
taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for
anything whatever, nor ambition, nor hope. And I perceive always my poor
mother on the ground, lying in the avenue, while my father is maltreating
her. My mother died a few years after; my father lives still. I have not
seen him since. Waiter, a 'bock.'"

A waiter brought him his "bock," which he swallowed at a gulp. But, in
taking up his pipe again, trembling as he was he broke it. Then he made a
violent gesture:

"Zounds! This is indeed a grief, a real grief. I have had it for a month,
and it was coloring so beautifully!"

He darted through the vast saloon, which was now full of smoke and of
people drinking, uttering his cry:

"Waiter, a 'bock'--and a new pipe."

REGRET

Monsieur Savel, who was called in Mantes, "Father Savel," had just risen
from bed. He wept. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were falling.
They fell slowly in the rain, resembling another rain, but heavier and
slower. M. Savel was not in good spirit. He walked from the fireplace
to the window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its somber
days. It will no longer have any but somber days for him now, for he has
reached the age of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody
about him. How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without the
disinterested affection of anyone!

He pondered over his life, so barren, so void. He recalled the days gone
by, the days of his infancy, the house, the house of his parents; his
college days, his follies, the time of his probation in Paris, the
illness of his father, his death. He then returned to live with his
mother. They lived together, the young man and the old woma