Toward evening, late, I heard a knock at my door. I lay stretched upon my bed, half naked, stupefied by drink.
"Who is there?" I cried.
"It is I."
"Who are you?"
"The waiter."
I rose, with my loosened hair falling from my shoulders, and opened the door.
"What do you want?"
The waiter smiled. He was a tall fellow with red hair, whom I had met several times on the stairs, and who always looked at me strangely.
"What do you want?" I repeated.
The waiter smiled again, apparently embarrassed, and, rolling in his fat fingers the bottom of his blue apron, covered with grease spots, he stammered:
"Mam'zelle . . . I" . . .
He surveyed my person with a sort of dismal desire.
"Well, come in, you brute," I cried, suddenly. And pushing him into my room, I closed the door again, violently.
Oh! misery me!
The waiter was discharged. I never knew his name!
I should not like to leave the subject of Mme. Paulhat-Durand's employment-bureau, without
