t was after a dinner of friends, of old friends. There were five of them, a writer, a doctor, and three rich bachelors without any profession.
They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude came on, that feeling of lassitude which precedes and leads to the departure of guests after festive gatherings. One of those present, who had for the last five minutes been gazing silently at the surging boulevard starred with gas-lamps, and rattling with vehicles, said suddenly:
"When you've nothing to do from morning till night, the days are long."
"And the nights, too," assented the guest who sat next to him. "I sleep very little; pleasures fatigue me; conversation is monotonous. Never do I come across a new idea, and I feel, before talking to anyone, a violent longing to say nothing and listen to nothing. I don't know what to do with my evenings."
And the third idler remarked:
"I would pay a great deal for anything that would enable me to pass merely two pleasant hours every day."
Then the writer, who had just thrown his overcoat across his arm, turned round to them and said:
"The man who could discover a new vice, and introduce it among his fellow-creatures, even though it were to shorten their lives, would render a greater service to humanity than the man who found the means of securing to them eternal salvation and eternal youth."
The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he said: