The poor artist grew old, and he was uneasy as to the future; for he had not known how to manage like his school-friend, the intriguing Damourette, who had formerly cheated him out of the ‘prix de Rome’ by a favor, and who now played the gentleman at the Institute, in his embroidered coat, and received all the good orders.  He, the simpleton, had saddled himself with a family, and although he had drudged like a slave he had laid nothing aside.  One day he might be stricken with apoplexy and leave his widow without resources, and his two daughters without a dowry.  He sometimes thought of all this as he filled his pipe, and it was not pleasant.

If M. Gerard grew gloomy as he grew older, M. Violette became mournful.  He was more than forty years old now.  What a decline!  Does grief make the years count double?  The widower was a mere wreck.  His rebellious lock of hair had become a dirty gray, and always hung over his right eye, and he no longer took the trouble to toss it behind his ear.  His hands trembled and he felt his memory leaving him.  He grew more taciturn and silent than ever, and seemed interested in nothing, not even in his son’s studies.  He returned home late, ate little at dinner, and then went out again with a tottering step to pace the dark, gloomy streets.  At the office, where he still did his work mechanically, he was a doomed man; he never would be elected chief assistant.  “What depravity!” said one of his fellow clerks, a young man with a bright future, protected by the head of the department, who went to the races and had not his equal in imitating the “Gnouf! gnouf!” of Grassot, the actor.  “A man of his age does not decline so rapidly without good cause.  It is not natural!” What is it, then, that has reduced M. Violette to such a degree of dejection and wretchedness?

Alas! we must admit it.  The unhappy man lacked courage, and he sought consolation in his despair, and found it in a vice.

Every evening when he left his office he went into a filthy little cafe on the Rue du Four.  He would seat himself upon a bench in the back of the room, in the darkest corner, as if ashamed; and would ask in a low tone for his first glass of absinthe.  His first!  Yes, for he drank two, three even.  He drank them in little sips, feeling slowly rise within him the cerebral rapture of the powerful liquor.  Let those who are happy blame him if they will!  It was there, leaning upon the marble table, looking at, without seeing her, through the pyramids of lump sugar and bowls of punch, the lady cashier with her well oiled hair reflected in the glass behind her—­it was there that the inconsolable widower found forgetfulness of his trouble.  It was there that for one hour he lived over again his former happiness.

For, by a phenomenon well known to drinkers of absinthe, he regulated and governed his intoxication, and it gave him the dream that he desired.

“Boy, one glass of absinthe!”