“But haven’t you ever loved anybody?”
“Not a bit of it. What for?”
“Haven’t I told you she’s as cold as marble?” muttered the chap who looked like a wig-maker.
“When I first became acquainted with that guy,” she went on, laughing and pointing to the fellow with the side-whiskers, “I had a man who paid for my room, and the landlady passed as my mother. Besides, I had other gentleman friends; well, you see, nobody saw anything wrong.”
“That’s terrible,” exclaimed the bearded old man, filling a glass with wine and gulping it down. “They don’t care a bit for us, and here we imagine that they have a heart. But really, in all truth, tell me, haven’t you ever loved anybody?”
“Nobody. Nobody.”
“Haven’t I told you,” repeated the wig-maker’s double, “that she’s as cold as marble? If you only knew the crazy things I’ve done for her! I would ask for her timidly at the porter’s lodge; a month would go by before I plucked up the courage to speak to her; and finally, after I’d got her, I discovered that she was the kind of woman to whom a fellow may say: ‘Are you free tomorrow at such and such an hour?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, then, see you tomorrow.’”
“Just as one would speak to a piano-tuner,” interjected the bearded gentleman, discovering some relation or other between people and pianos. “It’s awful,” he added. And then, in an access of anger, he pounded his fist down upon the table and set all the glasses dancing.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked the old fellow.