"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 college.
"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 has 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, nor ambition, nor hope. And I perceive always my poor mother on the ground, lying in the avenue, while my father is maltreating her. My mother died a few years after; my father lives still. I have not seen him since. Waiter, a 'bock.'"
A waiter brought him his "bock," which he swallowed at a gulp. But, in taking up his pipe again, trembling as he was he broke it. Then he made a violent gesture:
"Zounds! This is indeed a grief, a real grief. I have had it for a month, and it was coloring so beautifully!"
He darted through the vast saloon, which was now full of smoke and of people drinking, uttering his cry:
"Waiter, a 'bock'—and a new pipe."