* * * * *
'Ah, yes, he's dead, quite dead,' the doctor said. 'He has been dead
some hours. He must have passed away peacefully, sitting here in his
chair.'
'Poor gentleman,' said the porter's wife. 'And a broken looking-glass
beside him. Oh, it's a sure sign, a broken looking-glass.'
THE REWARD OF VIRTUE
He was one of the institutions of the Latin Quarter, one of the least
admirable. He haunted the Boulevard St. Michel, hung round the cafes,
begged of the passing stranger, picked up cigarette-ends, and would,
at a pinch, run errands, or do odd jobs.
With his sallow, wrinkled skin, his jungle of grey beard, his thick
grey hair, matted and shiny, covering his ears and falling about his
shoulders, he was scarcely an attractive-looking person. Besides, he
had lost an eye; and its empty socket irresistibly drew your gaze--an
abhorrent vacuum. His clothes would be the odds and ends of students'
offcasts, in the last stages of disintegration. He had a chronic
stoop; always aimed his surviving eye obliquely at you, from a bent
head; and walked with a sort of hang-dog shuffle that seemed a general
self-denunciation.
Where he slept, whether under a roof or on the pavement, and when,
were among his secrets. No matter how late or how early you were
abroad, you would be sure to encounter Bibi, wide-awake, somewhere in
the Boul' Miche, between the Luxembourg and the Rue des Ecoles.
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