the small tables under the awning of the Cafe' de la Paix at the
corner of the Place de l'Opera--that is to say, the centre of
the inhabited world. In the morning I drank my coffee, hot in
the cup; in the afternoon I sipped it cold in the glass. I spoke
to no one; not a glance or a gesture of mine passed to attract
notice.

Yet I was the centre of that centre of the world. All day the
crowds surrounded me, laughing loudly; all the voyous making
those jokes for which I found no repartee. The pavement was
sometimes blocked; the passing coachmen stood up in their boxes
to look over at me, small infants were elevated on shoulders to
behold me; not the gravest or most sorrowful came by without
stopping to gaze at me and go away with rejoicing faces. The
boulevards rang to their laughter--all Paris laughed!

For seven days I sat there at the appointed times, meeting the
eye of nobody, and lifting my coffee with fingers which trembled
with embarrassment at this too great conspicuosity! Those
mournful hours passed, one by the year, while the idling
bourgeois and the travellers made ridicule; and the rabble
exhausted all effort to draw plays of wit from me.

I have told you that I carried no placard, that my costume was
elegant, my demeanour modest in all degree.

"How, then, this excitement?" would be your disposition to
inquire. "Why this sensation?"

It is very simple. My hair had been shaved off, all over my