e
luxury of a wife, and as he had never enjoyed anything, he desired
nothing. From time to time, however, tired of this continuous and
monotonous work, he formed a platonic wish: "Gad! If I only had an income
of fifteen thousand francs, I would take life easy."

He had never taken life easy, as he had never had anything but his
monthly salary. His life had been uneventful, without emotions, without
hopes. The faculty of dreaming with which every one is blessed had never
developed in the mediocrity of his ambitions.

When he was twenty-one he entered the employ of Messieurs Labuze and
Company. And he had never left them.

In 1856 he had lost his father and then his mother in 1859. Since then
the only incident in his life was when he moved, in 1868, because his
landlord had tried to raise his rent.

Every day his alarm clock, with a frightful noise of rattling chains,
made him spring out of bed at 6 o'clock precisely.

Twice, however, this piece of mechanism had been out of order--once
in 1866 and again in 1874; he had never been able to find out the reason
why. He would dress, make his bed, sweep his room, dust his chair and the
top of his bureau. All this took him an hour and a half.

Then he would go out, buy a roll at the Lahure Bakery, in which he had
seen eleven different owners without the name ever changing, and he would
eat this roll on the way to the office.

His entire existence had been spent in the narrow, dark office, which was
still decorated with the same wall paper. He had entered there as a young
man, as assistant to Monsieur Brument, and with the desire to replace
him.

He had taken his place and wished for nothing more.

The whole harvest of memories which other men reap in their span of
years, the unexpected events, sweet or tragic loves, adventurous
journeys, all the occurrences of a free existence, all these things had
remained unknown to him.

Days, weeks, months, seasons, years, all were alike to him. He got up
every day at the same hour, started out, arrived at the office, ate
luncheon, went away, had dinner and went to bed without ever interrupting
the regular monotony of similar actions, deeds and thoughts.

Formerly he used to look at his blond mustache and wavy hair in the
little round mirror left by his predecessor. Now, every evening before
leaving, he would look at his white mustache and bald head in the same
mirror. Forty years had rolled by, long and rapid, dreary as a day o