For forty years Monsieur Leras had been arriving every morning in this prison at eight o’clock, and he would remain there until seven at night, bending over his books, writing with the industry of a good clerk.

He was now making three thousand francs a year, having started at fifteen hundred.  He had remained a bachelor, as his means did not allow him the luxury of a wife, and as he had never enjoyed anything, he desired nothing.  From time to time, however, tired of this continuous and monotonous work, he formed a platonic wish:  “Gad!  If I only had an income of fifteen thousand francs, I would take life easy.”

He had never taken life easy, as he had never had anything but his monthly salary.  His life had been uneventful, without emotions, without hopes.  The faculty of dreaming with which every one is blessed had never developed in the mediocrity of his ambitions.

When he was twenty-one he entered the employ of Messieurs Labuze and Company.  And he had never left them.

In 1856 he had lost his father and then his mother in 1859.  Since then the only incident in his life was when he moved, in 1868, because his landlord had tried to raise his rent.

Every day his alarm clock, with a frightful noise of rattling chains, made him spring out of bed at 6 o’clock precisely.

Twice, however, this piece of mechanism had been out of order—­once in 1866 and again in 1874; he had never been able to find out the reason why.  He would dress, make his bed, sweep his room, dust his chair and the top of his bureau.  All this took him an hour and a half.

Then he would go out, buy a roll at the Lahure Bakery, in which he had seen eleven different owners without the name ever changing, and he would eat this roll on the way to the office.

His entire existence had been spent in the narrow, dark office, which was still decorated with the same wall paper.  He had entered there as a young man, as assistant to Monsieur Brument, and with the desire to replace him.

He had taken his place and wished for nothing more.

The whole harvest of memories which other men reap in their span of years, the unexpected events, sweet or tragic loves, adventurous journeys, all the occurrences of a free existence, all these things had remained unknown to him.

Days, weeks, months, seasons, years, all were alike to him.  He got up every day at the same hour, started out, arrived at the office, ate luncheon, went away, had dinner and went to bed without ever interrupting the regular monotony of similar actions, deeds and thoughts.

Formerly he used to look at his blond mustache and wavy hair in the little round mirror left by his predecessor.  Now, every evening before leaving, he would look at his white mustache and bald head in the same mirror.  Forty years had rolled by, long and rapid, dreary as a day of sadness and as similar as the hours of a sleepless night.  Forty years of which nothing remained, not even a memory, not even a misfortune, since the death of his parents.  Nothing.