The Red Republic

All Englishmen are pigs! observed a young man who stood swaying in the doorway of the Cafe Cardinal. Nobody replied to this criticism. The cafe was full. The young man advanced unsteadily to the center of the long room and looked about for a seat. His lusterless eyes traveled from table to table until they became fixed on a group of people in the embrasure of one of the windows which opened on the rue des Ecoles. Toward these people he shuffled, but when he laid a heavy hand on the shoulder of one, a woman, she cried out and shrank away. A man sitting beside her started up angrily, but sat down again when he saw who it was, and resumed his jaunty air.


Genre: Literary Fiction