AVERNUS

She sat on a divan in the corner when he entered the Vachette for the
first time. He said nothing, nor did he experience either a thrill of
pleasure or disgust. The other waiters assured him that she was an old
customer, sometimes better dressed, yet never without money. And she was
liberal. He took her usual order, but did not speak to her, though she
played with the purse as if to tempt him--it had become for him a symbol
of their lives. A quick glance assured him that the amethyst had
disappeared. She was literally drinking _his_ gift away in absinthe. The
spring passed, and Ambroise did not regain his former health. His limbs
were leaden, his head always heavy. The alert waiter was transformed. He
took his orders soberly, executed them soberly,--he was still a good
routinier; but his early enthusiasm was absent. Something had gone from
him that night; as she went to her carriage with her scornful, snapping,
petulant _Ça_!--he felt that his life was over. Aholibah watched like a
cat every night; he was not on for day duty. She never came to the Rasta
before dark. The story of her infatuation for the well-bred, melancholy
garçon was noised about; but it did not endanger his position, as at La
Source. He paid little attention to the jesting, and was scrupulously
exact in his work. But the sense of his double personality began to
worry him again. He did not see scarlet as of old; he noticed when his
eyes were closed that the apparition of a second Ambroise swam into the
field of his vision. And he was positively certain that this spectre of
himself saw scarlet--the attitude of his double assured him of the fact.
Simple-minded, ignorant of cerebral disorders, loyal, and laborious,
Ambroise could not speak of these disquieting things--indeed, he only
worked the more....