had never
existed. He thinks not at all of that which but a few hours before had
made life worth living. He walks along, alone with his disgrace, and
each step of his seems to draw from the earth a dead thing; an ancestral
influence, a racial prejudice, a family boast, dormant hauteur, honor
and fierce pride, and as these awake, they oppress his breast and cloud
his thoughts.

How they must have laughed at him behind his back, with condescending
pity!... Now he walks along more hurriedly than ever, as if he has at
last made up his mind just where he is going, and his emotion leads him
unconsciously to murmur with irony, as if he is speaking to somebody who
is at his heels and whom he desires to flee.

"Many thanks! Many thanks!"

Just before dawn two revolver shots astound the guests of a hotel in the
vicinity of the _Gare Saint-Lazare_,--one of those ambiguous
establishments that offers a safe shelter for amorous acquaintances
begun on the thoroughfare.

The attendants find in one of the rooms a gentleman dressed in evening
clothes, with a hole in his head, through which escape bloody strips of
flesh. The man writhes like a worm upon the threadbare carpet.

His eyes, of a dull black, still glitter with life. There is nothing
left in them of the image of his sweet companion. His last thought,
interrupted by death, is of friendship, terrible in its pity; of the
fraternal insult of a generous, light-hearted compassion.

END

LUXURY

"I HAD her on my lap," said my friend Martinez, "and the warm weight of
her healthy body was beginning to tire me.

"The scene... same as usual in such places. Mirrors with blemished
surfaces, and names scratched across them, like spiders' webs; sofas of
discolored velvet, with springs that creaked atrociously; the bed
decorated with theatrical hangings, as clean and common as a sidewalk,
and on the walls, pictures of bull-fighters and cheap chromos of angelic
virgins smelling a rose or languorously contemplating a bold hunter.

"The scenery was that of the favorite cell in the convent of vice; an
elegant room reserved for distinguished patrons; and she was a healthy,
robust creature, who seemed to bring a whiff of the pure mountain air
into the heavy atmosphere of this closed house, saturated with cheap
cologne, rice powder and the vapor from dirty washbasins.

"As she spoke to me she stroked the ribbons of her gown with childish
complacency; it was a fine piece of sati