Marcas was afraid of looking directly at others, not for himself, but for those on whom his fascinating gaze might rest; he had a power, and he shunned using it; he would spare those he met, and he feared notice. This was not from modesty, but from resignation founded on reason, which had demonstrated the immediate inutility of his gifts, the impossibility of entering and living in the sphere for which he was fitted. Those eyes could at times flash lightnings. From those lips a voice of thunder must surely proceed; it was a mouth like Mirabeau’s. “I have seen such a grand fellow in the street,” said I to Juste on coming in. “It must be our neighbor,” replied Juste, who described, in fact, the man I had just met. “A man who lives like a wood-louse would be sure to look like that,” he added. “What dejection and what dignity!” “One is the consequence of the other.” “What ruined hopes! What schemes and failures!” “Seven leagues of ruins! Obelisks--palaces--towers!--The ruins of Palmyra in the desert!” said Juste, laughing. So we called him the Ruins of Palmyra. As we went out to dine at the wretched eating-house in the Rue de la Harpe to which we subscribed, we asked the name of Number 37, and then heard the weird name Z. Marcas. Like boys, as we were, we repeated it more than a hundred times with all sorts of comments, absurd or melancholy, and the name lent itself to a jest. Juste would fire off the Z like a rocket rising, _z-z-z-z-zed_; and after pronouncing the first syllable of the name with great importance, depicted a fall by the dull brevity of the second. “Now, how and where does the man live?” From this query, to the innocent espionage of curiosity there was no pause but that required for carrying out our plan. Instead of loitering about the streets, we both came in, each armed with a novel. We read with our ears open. And in the perfect silence of our attic rooms, we heard the even, dull sound of a sleeping man breathing. “He is asleep,” said I to Juste, noticing this fact. “At seven o’clock!” replied the Doctor. This was the name by which I called Juste, and he called me the Keeper of the Seals. “A man must be wretched indeed to sleep as much as our neighbor!” cried I, jumping on to the chest of drawers with a knife in my hand, to which a corkscrew was attached. I made a round hole at the top of the partition, about as big as a five-sou piece. I had forgotten that there would be no light in the room, and on putting my eye to the hole, I saw only darkness. At about one in the morning, when we had finished our books and were about to undress, we heard a noise in our neighbor’s room. He got up, struck a match, and lighted his dip. I got on to the drawers again, and I then saw Marcas seated at his table and copying law-papers.