t; if you
work for others, you reap nothing but ingratitude."

Then sticking his pipe into his whiskers, he called out anew:

"Waiter, a 'bock.' It makes me thirsty to keep calling so. I am not
accustomed to that sort of thing. Yes, yes, I do nothing; I let things
slide, and I am growing old. In dying I 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 meanwhile been fetched to him, passed
his tongue over his lips, and resumed his pipe.

I looked at him stupefied. I asked him:

"But you have not always been like that?"

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

"That is not a proper life to lead, my dear sir; it is simple 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 years on this bench, in my
corner; and the other four 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 even take 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 regarded him straight in the face. His shrunken figure, so 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 the skin of doubtful
cleanness. He had enormous eyelashes, a large moustache, and a thick
beard. Suddenly, I had a kind of vision. I know not why; the vision of a
basin filled with noisome water,