out of their blood and drawn from the very air they breathed: a feeling that any life not based on gainful labour, any life devoted openly and nakedly to pleasure, idleness and leisure, and the gratification of one’s own desires, was, somehow, an ignoble and shameful life.
Now, suddenly torn with this old and irremediable sense of guilt, he scowled suddenly, fidgeted restlessly in his chair, and then spoke sharply and angrily to the old woman, who sat with her sad, reproachful gaze upon him.
“Well, it’s spent now, it’s gone, it can’t be helped. What do you expect people to do with money, anyway?” he said irritably. “Count it and kiss it and say good night to it every time they go to sleep—and kiss it and count it over again every time they wake up, to see none of it has got away from them in the night? What’s it for, anyway, if it’s not to spend? What are you living for?” he said bitterly. “What are you waiting for? Are you saving your money so you can have a nice coffin when they bury you?”
“Yes, my boy, but you spend so much on food and drink and on the girls,” the old woman said in a sad tone. “So much of it goes on things like that.”
“And why not?” he said resentfully. “Will you please tell me what else I should spend it on? Is there anything better than that to spend it on?”
“Don’t spend it on those girls in the café,” she said. “They are bad—bad—they will bring you nothing but misfortune and trouble. Come,” she said, getting up briskly. “I shall take you with me this morning and introduce you to two nice girls. You will be better off with them than with those women in the café.”
They went out and walked along the streets of the old town, brisk with morning life, cheerful with the thin, musty yellow of a wintry sun. As they walked along those streets of morning, many people recognized the old woman and spoke respectfully to her. Sometimes shopkeepers spoke to her from doorways, smiling good-naturedly at the sight of the little old woman trotting briskly along beside the towering height of the young man. Sometimes she would hear their laughter and bantering comment among themselves about the ludicrous disproportion of the pair, and then, turning to the young man, she would laugh in an abstracted and yet pleased way, saying:
“Ah—hah—hah! They are laughing at you and me, boy. They think it is very funny, the way we look together…. Un grand garçon, eh?”
