Raymond kept his promise. He came to me the following day; and, after I had made my arrangements, so that no one should interrupt us, I asked him to begin his story.
"It is not my intention," said he, "to tell you the history of my life; I shall only relate to you my début as a Greek, and the causes which so fatally led to it. After that, I will tell you some startling incidents, of which I have been the hero, the accomplice, or the witness.
"My real name, and the place of my birth, are of little consequence. I shall not mention them, out of respect to my family, one of the members of which holds a very high position in Paris; to you, therefore, I shall be simply M. Raymond.
"At the age of twenty, I was a tolerably good-looking fellow, and came into possession of a fortune of about ten thousand francs (400l.) a year. Being an orphan, I had no one to control me, and led, in consequence, one of the fastest and most dissolute lives in the metropolis.
"In two years my patrimony was all spent, and I found myself ruined.
"As always happens in such cases, my friends turned their backs on me, and, as must also always happen, it was necessary for me to exist; but how? A serious question, for one who had never had any other profession than idleness and debauchery.
"The idea of suicide occurred to me, but whether it was cowardice, or submission to fate, that prevented me, I know not, but I continued to live on."
M. Raymond then related several piquant anecdotes, as he called them.
As a faithful historian I shall transcribe them for the benefit of my readers; but, as they will be easier to recount in the third person, I shall in future adopt that method.
Raymond was thus abandoned, as he had stated, by all his friends, with one exception. This faithful friend, named Brissac, was the same age as himself; he had been the companion of his follies, and would now share his misfortunes.