The letter came from Revaud’s father. In ten lines written in a painstaking hand, with thick downstrokes and fine upstrokes, with flourishes and a dashing signature, the old man announced that he was going to visit him one day in the near future. Laughter came back again to Revaud, and with laughter a final justification for living. All day he toyed with the letter, and used gladly to show it and say: “We are going to have a visit. My father is coming to see us.” Then he began to be rather confiding. “My father, you know, is a fine fellow, but he has had some hard knocks. You will see my father--he’s a fellow that’s up to a few tricks, and, what’s worse, he wears a shirt collar.” Finally he ended by restricting his comments on his father’s character to this statement: “My father!--you’ll see--he wears a shirt collar.” The days passed, and Revaud spoke so often of his father that in the end he no longer knew whether the visitor had come or was yet to come. Thus, by a special providence, Revaud never knew that his father did not come to see him; and afterwards, when wanting to make allusion to this remarkable period, he had recourse to a very ample phrase, and used to say: “It was the time of my father’s visit.” Revaud was spoiled: he never lacked cigarettes or company, and he used to confess so contentedly: “I’m the pet of this hospital.” Besides, Revaud was not difficult. Tarrissant had only to appear between his crutches for the dying man to exclaim, “Here’s another who’s come to see me. I told you I was the pet here.” Tarrissant had undergone the same operation as Revaud. It was a complicated business, taking place in the knee. Only, in the case of Tarrissant the operation had been more or less a complete success, and in the case of Revaud, more or less a failure, because “it depends on one’s blood.” From the operation itself Revaud thought he had learned a new word: “His knee had been ‘dezected.’” He used to look at Tarrissant, and, comparing himself with the convalescing young man, he came to the simple conclusion: “We are both ‘dezected’ men, except that my old woman has left me; and, too, I have been overworked.” It was the only allusion that Revaud ever made to his conjugal misfortune and to his toiling past. But really, why think of all these things? Hasn’t man enough to do with a troublesome leg, or this perpetual need which he cannot control?