m the date of our first sorry appearance in
society, as if from a first humiliation; for no actor can come upon the
stage with a worse grace. Not to go further back, which would be judged
too curious, there are subsequently many moving and decisive accidents in
the lives of all, which would make as logical a period as this of birth.
And here, for instance, Doctor Desprez, a man past forty, who had made
what is called a failure in life, and was moreover married, found
himself at a new point of departure when he opened the door of the loft
above Tentaillon's stable.

It was a large place, lighted only by a single candle set upon the floor.
The mountebank lay on his back upon a pallet; a large man with a Quixotic
nose inflamed with drinking. Madame Tentaillon stooped over him, applying
a hot water and mustard embrocation to his feet; and on a chair close by
sat a little fellow of eleven or twelve, with his feet dangling. These
three were the only occupants except the shadows. But the shadows were a
company in themselves; the extent of the room exaggerated them to a
gigantic size, and from the low position of the candle the light struck
upwards and produced deformed foreshortenings. The mountebank's profile
was enlarged upon the wall in caricature, and it was strange to see his
nose shorten and lengthen as the flame was blown about by draughts. As
for Madame Tentaillon, her shadow was no more than a gross hump of
shoulders, with now and again a hemisphere of head. The chair-legs were
spindled out as long as stilts, and the boy sat perched a-top of them,
like a cloud, in the corner of the roof.

It was the boy who took the Doctor's fancy. He had a great arched skull,
the forehead and the hands of a musician, and a pair of haunting eyes. It
was not merely that these eyes were large, or steady, or the softest
ruddy brown. There was a look in them, besides, which thrilled the
Doctor, and made him half uneasy. He was sure he had seen such a look
before, and yet he could not remember how or where. It was as if this
boy, who was quite a stranger to him, had the eyes of an old friend or an
old enemy. And the boy would give him no peace; he seemed profoundly
indifferent to what was going on, or rather abstracted from it in a
superior contemplation, beating gently with his feet against the bars of
the chair, and holding his hands folded on his lap. But, for all that,
his eyes kept following the Doctor about the room with a thoughtful