d was bent over to one side, and his cane was pushed into his
mouth like a clarinet. The illustrious and gloomy jester then moved to
the centre of the room and staggered against my table as he said
despondently: "Have pity on a blind man!..."

It was such a good take-off that I couldn't stop myself laughing. The
Arctic-cold response came immediately: "If you think I'm joking ...
just look into my eyes."

He then turned two large, white, sightless eyes towards me: "I've gone
blind, my dear, blind for life.... That's what comes from writing with
vitriol. I have burned out the candle of my eyes out doing the damned
job ... to the stub!" he added showing me his desiccated eyelids with
no trace of an eyelash.

I was so overcome, I couldn't find anything to say. My silence troubled
him:

"Are you working?"

"--No, Bixiou, I'm having lunch. Would you like to join me?"

He didn't reply, but I could see clearly from his quivering nostrils
that he was dying to say yes. I took his hand and sat him down beside
me.

While I served him, the poor devil sniffed at the food and chuckled:

"Oh, it smells good, this. I'm really going to enjoy it; and it will be
an age before I eat again! A sou's worth of bread every morning, as I
traipse through the ministries, is all I get.... I tell you, I'm really
badgering the ministries now--it's the only work I do--I am trying to
get permission to run a tobacconist's shop.... What else can I do; I've
got to eat. I can't draw; I can't write... Dictation?... But dictate
what?... I haven't a clue, me; I can't think of a thing to write. My
trade was to look at the lunacies of Paris and hold a mirror up to
them; but I haven't got what it takes now.... Then I thought about a
tobacconist's shop; not in the boulevards of course, I can't expect
those kind of favours, being neither a show girl's mother, nor a field
officer's widow. No. I'm just looking for a small shop in the
provinces, somewhere far away, say a spot in the Vosges. I will sell a
hell of a clay pipe, and console myself by wrapping tobacco in my
contemporaries' writings.

"That's all I want. Not too much to ask, is it? But, do you know what,
its hell on earth to get it... Yet, I shouldn't be short of patronage.
I have soared high in my time. I used to dine with the Marshal, the
prince, and ministers, all those people wanted me then because I amused
them--or frightened them. Now, no one does. Oh, my eyes! my poor, poor
eyes! I'm not