seemed to promise something in the nature of local colour; and I
entered the _Brasserie des Quatre Vents_.

It proved to be a _brasserie-à-femmes_; you were waited upon by
ladies, lavishly rouged and in regardless toilets, who would sit with
you and chat, and partake of refreshments at your expense. The front
part of the room was filled up with tables, where half a hundred
customers, talking at the top of their voices, raised a horrid
din--sailors, soldiers, a few who might be clerks or tradesmen, and an
occasional workman in his blouse. Beyond, there was a cleared space,
reserved for dancing, occupied by a dozen couples, clumsily toeing it;
and on a platform, at the far end, a man pounded a piano. All this in
an atmosphere hot as a furnace-blast, and poisonous with the fumes of
gas, the smells of bad tobacco, of musk, alcohol, and humanity.

The musician faced away from the company, so that only his shoulders
and the back of his grey head were visible, bent over his keyboard. It
was sad to see a grey head in that situation; and one wondered what
had brought it there, what story of vice or weakness or evil fortune.
Though his instrument was harsh, and he had to bang it violently to be
heard above the roar of conversation, the man played with a kind of
cleverness, and with certain fugitive suggestions of good style. He
had once studied an art, and had hopes and aspirations, who now, in
his age, was come to serve the revels of a set of drunken sailors, in
a disreputable tavern, where they danced with prostitutes. I don't
know why, but from the first he drew my attention; and I left my
handmaid to count her charms neglected, while I sat and watched him,
speculating about him in a melancholy way, with a sort of vicarious
shame.