Summary

While worrying that the proprietress of the restaurant – now given the names Marguerite and/or Madeleine – has forgotten about him, the narrator asks himself how is it that passersby have not noticed him on the street, especially because he is sitting right in front of the menu. This thought further cements his suspicion that he is not actually alive, and fantasizes that one day a couple will walk by and acknowledge his ailing existence, which he contends would reignite his hope: “I shall be dead, but I shall have lived” (336). Though he considers that Marguerite/Madeleine’s care for him is evidence that he exists, he thinks that her absence of late after doting on him more intensely than usual is a sign that she has lost faith in him. Part of what contributes to these concerns is that he no longer feels the...