By a searching sweep of the eye I sought out a place where I would not be too much crowded, and so I went and sat down by the side of a man who seemed to me to be old, and who smoked a halfpenny clay pipe, which had become as black as coal. From six to eight beer saucers were piled up on the table in front of him, indicating the number of "bocks" he had already absorbed. With the same sweep of the eye I had recognized a "regular toper," one of those frequenters of beer-houses, who come in the morning as soon as the place is open, and only go way in the evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald to about the middle of the cranium, while his long, powder and salt, gray hair, fell over the neck of his frock coat. His clothes, much too large for him, appeared to have been made for him at a time when he carried a great stomach. One could guess that the pantaloons were not suspended from braces, and that this man could not take ten paces without his having to stop to pull them up and to readjust them. Did he wear a vest? The mere thought of his boots and that which they enveloped filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs were as perfectly black at the edges as were his nails.
As soon as I had sat down near him, this queer creature said to me in a tranquil tone of voice:
"How goes it with you?"
I turned sharply round to him and closely scanned his features, whereupon he continued:
"I see you do not recognize me."
"No, I do not."
"Des Barrets."
I was stupefied. It was Count Jean des Barrets, my old college chum.
I seized him by the hand, and was so dumbfounded that I could find nothing to say. I, at length, managed to stammer out:
"And you, how goes it with yourself?"
He responded placidly:
"With me? Just as I like."
He became silent. I wanted to be friendly, and I selected this phrase:
"What are you doing now?"
"You see what I am doing," he answered, quite resignedly.
I felt my face getting red. I insisted:
"But every day?"
"Every day is alike to me," was his response accompanied with a thick puff of tobacco smoke.
He then tapped on the top of the marble table with a sou, to attract the attention of the waiter, and called out:
"Waiter, two "bocks.""
A voice in the distance repeated:
"Two bocks, instead of four."
Another voice, more distant still, shouted out:
"Here they are, sir, here they are."
Immediately there appeared a man with a white ap.r.o.n, carrying two "bocks," which he sat down foaming on the table, the spouts facing over the edge, on to the sandy floor.
Des Barrets emptied his gla.s.s at a single draught and replaced it on the table. He next asked:
"What is there new?"
"I know of nothing new, worth mentioning, really," I stammered:
"But nothing has grown old, for me; I am a commercial man."
In an equable tone of voice, he said;
"Indeed ... does that amuse you?"
"No, but what do you mean to a.s.sert? Surely you must do something!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I only mean, how do you pa.s.s your time!"
"What"s the use of occupying myself with anything. For my part, I do nothing at all, as you see, never anything. When one has not got a sou one can understand why one has to go to work. What is the good of working? Do you work for yourself, or for others? If you work for yourself you do it for your own amus.e.m.e.nt, which is all right; if you work for others, you reap nothing but ingrat.i.tude."
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 gla.s.s which had meanwhile been fetched to him, pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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?"