admiring the deftness of the clerks at the counters! . . . Because, you understand, if I should permit myself one single idle moment—why, I might go mad! . . . I might pull out a revolver and shoot someone who never did me the least harm in the world! . . . Why, I might shoot you, for instance—though all you've done, so far as I can see, is to have lost your train! . . . (He laughs.) Oh,no!—no! . . . Don't be afraid. . . . I'm only joking! . . . (A pause.) Well—I must be going. . . . (A pause.) At the very worst, I might kill myself some day—(A pause.) But, you see, this is the fruit season, and I like apricots. . . . How do you eat them?—Skin and all, I suppose. Ah!—that's the way! . . . You cut them in halves, and you bring your two fingers together, and you suck in the juice, eh?—Ah! that's the way! . . . How good they are! . . . (He laughs. A pause.) Well—give my regards to your wife and daughters, when you get back to the country. (A pause.) I imagine them dressed in white and blue, sitting on the green grass in the shade of some tree. . . . (A pause.) Do something for me to-morrow morning, when you get home—will you? . . . I suppose your villa will be some little distance from the station. Well—you'll get there about sunrise, won't you? And you'd enjoy making the trip on foot. Well—the first tuft of grass you notice on the roadside—just count the blades for me! The number of those blades of grass will be the number of the days I still have to live! . . . (A pause.) . . . Choose a good-sized clump, if you please—eh? . . . (He laughs.) Well—good-night! . . . good-night! . . . (He walks away, humming through his closed lips the movement played by the distant mandolin. He heads at first toward the corner on the right, but then, reflecting that his wife is probably there waiting for him, he turns around and walks off in the other direction. The Customer sits there, looking after him in amazement.)
Curtain
