“This every day, or, if you like the phrase better, commonplace, existence agreed with me, satisfied my natural tastes for changes and silliness.  I lived on the boulevard, in theaters and cafes, always out of doors, always without a regular home, though I was comfortably housed.  I was one of those thousands of beings who let themselves float like corks, through life, for whom the walls of Paris are the walls of the world, and who have no care about anything, having no passion for anything.  I was what is called a good fellow, without accomplishments and without defects.  That is all.  And I judge myself correctly.

“Then, from twenty to forty years, my existence flowed along slowly or rapidly without any remarkable event.  How quickly they pass, the monstrous years of Paris, when none of those memories worth fixing the date of find way into the soul, these long and yet hurried years, trivial and gay, when you eat, drink and laugh without knowing why, your lips stretched out towards all they can taste and all they can kiss, without having a longing for anything.  You are young, and you grow old without doing any of the things that others do, without any attachment, any root, any bond, almost without friends, without family, without wife, without children.

“So, gently and quickly, I reached my fortieth year; and in order to celebrate this anniversary, I invited myself to take a good dinner all alone in one of the principal cafes.

“After dinner, I was in doubt as to what I would do.  I felt disposed to go to a theater; and then the idea came into my head to make a pilgrimage to the Latin quarters, where I had in former days lived as a law-student.  So I made my way across Paris, and without premeditation went in to one of those public-houses where you are served by girls.

“The one who attended at my table was quite young, pretty, and merry-looking.  I asked her to take a drink, and she at once consented.  She sat down opposite me, and gazed at me with a practiced eye, without knowing with what kind of a male she had to do.  She was a fair-haired woman, or rather a fair-haired girl, a fresh, quite fresh young creature, whom you guessed to be rosy and plump under her swelling bodice.  I talked to her in that flattering and idiotic style which we always adopt with girls of this sort; and as she was truly charming, the idea suddenly occurred to me to take her with me—­always with a view to celebrating my fortieth year.  It was neither a long nor difficult task.  She was free, she told me, for the past fortnight, and she forthwith accepted my invitation to come and sup with me in the Halles when her work would be finished.

“As I was afraid lest she might give me the slip—­you never can tell what may happen, or who may come into those drink-shops, or what wind may blow into a woman’s head—­I remained there all the evening waiting for her.

“I, too, had been free for the past month or two, and watching this pretty debutante of love going from table to table, I asked myself the question whether it would not be worth my while to make a bargain with her to live with me for some time.  I am here relating to you one of those ordinary adventures which occur every day in the lives of men in Paris.