Yes, we have seen a good deal of the world; we have met many people on our way; our experience of life is large enough. There was a time when we were ambitious we also, very ambitious. We dreamt of prize medals and certificates for both of us, of Persian carpets under our feet, and of roasted ortolans flying straight into our mouths. That time is past, one of us is already gray, but no roasted ortolans have flown into our mouths, nor any Persian carpets spread themselves under our feet. And when the floor feels too cold, I lay down my cloak for my comrade to lie upon. And we begin to realise what man is worth. We used to be idealists because we believed that others were idealists. We were gentle and harmless as lambs because we believed that others were so. We were philanthropists. But we have discovered that we were mistaken. Men are not at all kind to each other. They talk so much about friendship, but there are only very few of them who are capable of realising the true signification of this word.
But, to be sure, they laugh if one gives to a dog's faithful devotion the name of friendship, if with thankful recognition one strives to repay as far as lies in one's power the humble comrade whom they call but a soulless animal, whose fine, sensitive thought they call instinct, and for whose honest, noble soul they deny all right to live any longer than his faithful dog-heart beats.
If this be not virtue, this all-sacrificing, all-self-denying, all-injustice-forgetting love,--well, then, I don't know what virtue means; and should his only reward for a whole life's faithful devotion consist in being shot in his old age and buried under a tree in the park at home, then all I can say is, that I do not believe that we either will get beyond the grave where our remains will one day be laid.
I do not in the least know how I happened to come upon the modest little café, nor do I know how it came to pass that during the whole of that year I frequented no other.
I wonder whether it was not on account of Monsieur Alfredo that I became an habitué there.
He evidently had his luncheon later than I, as I had already had time to smoke a couple of cigarettes before he made his appearance at the Café de l'Empereur, upright and trim in his tightly-buttoned frock-coat, a roll of manuscript under his arm, and his gray hair in neat curls surrounding his wrinkled, childlike face. The waiter brought him his little cup of coffee and placed the chess-board between us. Monsieur Alfredo, with old-fashioned courtesy, inquired after my health, and I on my side received satisfactory assurances as to his well-being. I busied myself in placing the chess-men, and whilst I groped under the table to find that pawn which somehow or other had always fallen to the ground, Monsieur Alfredo rapidly produced his lump of sugar out of his pocket and put it into his cup.