Pagina 21 van 1294

There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two

drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about

five men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same

time. Their departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The

persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an

artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of

beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with a grey beard, in

a short full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had dropped

asleep on the bench; every now and then, he began as though in

his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the

upper part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he

hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines

as these:

"His wife a year he fondly loved His wife a--a year he--fondly

loved."

Or suddenly waking up again:

"Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know."