QUOTE : Feet frozen, squeezed inside boots stiffened by showers and puddles, skull white hot from the gas burner hissing above his head, M. Folantin had barely eaten anything and even now bad luck wouldn't let him be; his fire was faltering, his lamp was smoking, his tobacco was damp and kept going out, staining the cigarette paper with yellow nicotine. <br /> A great depression gripped him; the emptiness of his narrow life became apparent, and as he stirred the coals with his poker, M. Folantin, leaning forward in his armchair, his forehead resting on the mantelpiece, began to review his forty-year Way of the Cross, stopping in despair at each Station.