the dinner hour was near.  He payed his bill, tore himself from his seat and dizzily gained the door.  He received a wet slap in the face upon leaving the place.  The street lamps moved their tiny fans of flame which failed to illuminate; the sky had dropped to the very houses.  Des Esseintes viewed the arcades of the rue de Rivoli, drowned in the gloom and submerged by water, and it seemed to him that he was in the gloomy tunnel under the Thames.  Twitchings of his stomach recalled him to reality.  He regained his carriage, gave the driver the address of the tavern in the rue d’Amsterdam near the station, and looked at his watch:  seven o’clock.  He had just time to eat dinner; the train would not leave until ten minutes of nine, and he counted on his fingers, reckoning the hours of travel from Dieppe to Newhaven, saying to himself:  “If the figures of the timetable are correct, I shall be at London tomorrow at twelve-thirty.”

The fiacre stopped in front of the tavern.  Once more, Des Esseintes alighted and entered a long dark plain room, divided into partitions as high as a man’s waist,—­a series of compartments resembling stalls.  In this room, wider towards the door, many beer pumps stood on a counter, near hams having the color of old violins, red lobsters, marinated mackerel, with onions and carrots, slices of lemon, bunches of laurel and thym, juniper berries and long peppers swimming in thick sauce.

One of these boxes was unoccupied.  He took it and called a young black-suited man who bent forward, muttering something in a jargon he could not understand.  While the cloth was being laid, Des Esseintes viewed his neighbors.  They were islanders, just as at the Bodega, with cold faience eyes, crimson complexions, thoughtful or haughty airs.  They were reading foreign newspapers.  The only ones eating were unescorted women in pairs, robust English women with boyish faces, large teeth, ruddy apple cheeks, long hands and legs.  They attacked, with genuine ardor, a rumpsteak pie, a warm meat dish cooked in mushroom sauce and covered with a crust, like a pie.

After having lacked appetite for such a long time, he remained amazed in the presence of these hearty eaters whose voracity whetted his hunger.  He ordered oxtail soup and enjoyed it heartily.  Then he glanced at the menu for the fish, ordered a haddock and, seized with a sudden pang of hunger at the sight of so many people relishing their food, he ate some roast beef and drank two pints of ale, stimulated by the flavor of a cow-shed which this fine, pale beer exhaled.

His hunger persisted.  He lingered over a piece of blue Stilton cheese, made quick work of a rhubarb tart, and to vary his drinking, quenched his thirst with porter, that dark beer which smells of Spanish licorice but which does not have its sugary taste.

He breathed deeply.  Not for years had he eaten and drunk so much.  This change of habit, this choice of unexpected and solid food had awakened his stomach from its long sleep.  He leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette and prepared to sip his coffee into which gin had been poured.