Excerpt
The men of means in Aix, having their big cool halls after the midday meal, and hastening to their daily game of dominoes along the narrow strip of shade that the edge of the roofs wrests from the sun on one side of the deserted street, the coachmen of the Cours Mirabeau who half turn in their seats to exchange a phrase or two of patois through the dust and din of the wheels, the beggars who choose the hour for mass to go and sun themselves against the wall of Saint-Sauveur,--all can remember having seen frequently--in the last years of the nineteenth century and the first years the present one, a singular old man. Almost all knew his name, very few had heard his voice. In the morning he was scarcely to be met, save at the hour when he returned for lunch, for he started out for his work at dawn. In the afternoon he would again set forth for the suburbs, on foot--almost always, sometimes in a cab. In the evening he went to bed before the table was cleared; he never dined out, he never had callers. The people of Aix had long since settled his case. Czanne passed for a madman. (from "Czanne", by lie Faure)