"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 take even 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 looked him straight in the face. His shrunken figure, 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 a

skin of doubtful cleanness. He had enormous eyelashes, a large
mustache, and a thick beard. Suddenly I had a kind of vision, I

know not why--the vision of a basin filled with noisome water,
the water which should have been applied to that poll. I said to

him:
"Verily, you look to be more than that age. Of a certainty you

must have experienced some great disappointment."
He replied:

"I tell you that I have not. I am old because I never take air.
There is nothing that vitiates the life of a man more than the

atmosphere of a cafe." I could not believe him.
"You must surely have been married as well? One could not get as

baldheaded as you are without having been much in love."
He shook his head, sending down his back little hairs from the

scalp:
"No, I have always been virtuous."

And raising his eyes toward the luster, which beat down on our
heads, he said:

"If I am baldheaded, it is the fault of the gas. It is the enemy
of hair. Waiter, a 'bock.' You must be thirsty also?"

"No, thank you. But you certainly interest me. When did you have
your first discouragement? Your life is not normal, is not

natural. There is something under it all."
"Yes, and it dates from my infancy. I received a heavy blow when

I was very young. It turned my life into darkness, which will
last to the end."

"How did it come about?"
"You wish to know about it? Well, then, listen. You recall, of

course, the castle in which I was brought up, seeing that you
used to visit it for five or six months during the vacations? You

remember that large, gray building in the middle of a great park,
and the long avenues of oaks, which opened toward the four

cardinal points! You remember my father and my mother, both of
whom were ceremonious, solemn, and severe.

"I worshiped my mother; I was suspicious of my father; but I
respected both, accustomed always as I was to see everyone bow

before them. In the country, they were Monsieur le Comte and
Madame la Comtesse; and our neighbors, the Tannemares, the

Ravelets, the Brennevilles, showed the utmostconsideration for
them.

"I was then thirteen years old, happy, satisfied with everything,
as one is at that age, and full of joy and vivacity.

"Now toward the end of September, a few days before entering the
Lycee, while I was enjoying myself in the mazes of the park,

climbing the trees and swinging on the branches, I saw crossing
an avenue my father and mother, who were walking together.

"I recall the thing as though it were yesterday. It was a very
windy day. The whole line of trees bent under the pressure of the

wind, moaned and seemed to utter cries--cries dull, yet deep--so
that the whole forest groaned under the gale.

"Evening had come on, and it was dark in the thickets. The
agitation of the wind and the branches excited me, made me skip

about like an idiot, and howl in imitation of the wolves.
"As soon as I perceived my parents, I crept furtively toward

them, under the branches, in order to surprise them, as though I
had been a veritable wolf. But suddenly seized with fear, I

stopped a few paces from them. My father, a prey to the most
violentpassion, cried:

" 'Your mother is a fool; moreover, it is not your mother that is
the question, it is you. I tell you that I want money, and I will

make you sign this.'
"My mother responded in a firm voice:

" 'I will not sign it. It is Jean's fortune, I shall guard it for
him and I will not allow you to devour it with strange women, as

you have your own heritage.'
"Then my father, full of rage, wheeled round and seized his wife

by the throat, and began to slap her full in the face with the
disengaged hand.

"My mother's hat fell off, her hair became disheveled and fell
down her back: she essayed to parry the blows, but could not

escape from them. And my father, like a madman, banged and banged
at her. My mother rolled over on the ground, covering her face in

both her hands. Then he turned her over on her back in order to
batter her still more, pulling away the hands which were covering

her face.
"As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the world had come to

an end, that the eternal laws had changed. I experienced the
overwhelming dread that one has in presence of things

supernatural, in presence of irreparable disaster. My boyish head
whirled round and soared. I began to cry with all my might,

without knowing why, a prey to terror, to grief, to a dreadful
bewilderment. My father heard me, turned round, and, on seeing

me, made as though he would rush at me. I believed that he wanted
to kill me, and I fled like a hunted animal, running straight in

front of me through the woods.
"I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two, I know not. Darkness

had set in, I tumbled over some thick herbs, exhausted, and I lay
there lost, devoured by terror, eaten up by a sorrow capable of

breaking forever the heart of a child. I became cold, I became
hungry. At length day broke. I dared neither get up, walk, return

home, nor save myself, fearing to encounter my father whom I did
not wish to see again.

"I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot
of a tree if the guard had not discovered me and led me away by

force.
"I found my parents wearing their ordinary aspect. My mother

alone spoke to me:
" 'How you have frightened me, you naughty boy; I have been the

whole night sleepless.'
"I did not answer, but began to weep. My father did not utter a

single word.
"Eight days later I entered the Lycee.

"Well, my friend, it was all over with me. I had witnessed the
other side of things, the bad side; I have not been able to

perceive the good side since that day. What things have passed in
my mind, what strange phenomena have warped my ideas, I do not

know. But I no longer have a taste for anything, a wish for
anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, no

ambition, no hope. And I can always see my poor mother lying on
the ground, in the avenue, while my father was maltreating her.

My mother died a few years after; my father lives still. I have
not seen him since. Waiter, a 'bock.' "