The two friends were getting near the end of their dinner. Through the cafe windows they could see the Boulevard, crowded with people. They could feel the gentle breezes which are wafted¹ over Paris on warm summer evenings and make you feel like going out somewhere, you care not where, under the trees, and make you dream of moonlit rivers, of fireflies and of larks².

 

One of the two, Henri Simon, heaved a deep sigh and said:

 

“Ah! I am growing old. It's sad. Formerly³, on evenings like this, I felt full of life. Now, I only feel regrets. Life is short!”

 

He was perhaps forty-five years old, very bald and already growing stout⁴.

 

The other, Pierre Carnier, a trifle older, but thin and lively, answered:

 

“Well, my boy, I have grown old without noticing it in the least. I have always been merry, healthy, vigorous and all the rest. As one sees oneself in the mirror every day, one does not realize the work of age, for it is slow, regular, and it modifies the countenance⁵ so gently that the changes are unnoticeable. It is for this reason alone that we do not die of sorrow after two or three years of excitement. For we cannot understand the alterations⁶ which time produces. In order to appreciate them one would have to remain six months without seeing one's own face —then, oh, what a shock!

 

“And the women, my friend, how I pity the poor beings! All their joy, all their power, all their life, lies in their beauty, which lasts ten years.

 

“As I said, I aged⁷ without noticing it; I thought myself practically a youth, when I was almost fifty years old. Not feeling the slightest infirmity, I went about, happy and peaceful.

 

“The revelation of my decline came to me in a simple and terrible manner, which overwhelmed me for almost six months—then I became resigned.

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