The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
His mother fell very ill. They had to operate, and it made her cry out aloud, until after thirty-four days of horrible suffering she died. His father, who was always so hale, was talking one day with a workman at the door of the little village church, which was undergoing repair, when a stone became detached from the arch and crushed his head. The devoted son wept for these, his best and oldest friends, and, at night, he sobbed in the arms of his pretty wife.
The young man, as I have said, was smoking a new pipe.
But I have forgotten to say that he had an old spaniel of whom he was very fond and whose name was Thomas.
A very great illness had fallen on Thomas, since the good mother's and the good father's deaths. When he was called he could barely drag himself along by the paws of his fore-legs.
One day a man of the world took residence in the little village where the young man was smoking a new pipe. He wore decorations and was distinguished and spoke with an agreeable accent. They became acquainted, and once, when the young man still smoking his new pipe entered his house unexpectedly, he found this fine fellow abed with his pretty wife whose firm and smooth breasts were like two ripe apples.
The young man said nothing. He placed a poor old collar around the neck of Thomas, and with a line which his mother had once used to hang clothes upon, he dragged him along to a huge town, where the two dwelled together in sorrow and want.
The young man had now become an old man, but he was still smoking his new pipe which too had become old.
One evening Thomas died. People came from the police department, and carried off his carcass somewhere.
The old man was now all alone with his old pipe. A great cold fell upon him and a terrible trembling. And he knew that his time had come, and that he never would be able to smoke again. So from the wretched bag which he once had brought with him from his home, he took a sad old hat, and in this he wrapped his pipe.