three o’clock in the afternoon
Towards three o'clock in the afternoon of one October day in the year 1844 , a man of sixty or thereabouts , whom anybody might have credited with more than his actual age , was walking along the Boulevard des Italiens with his head bent down , as if he were tracking some one . There was a smug expression about the mouth -- he looked like a merchant who has just done a good stroke of business , or a bachelor emerging from a boudoir in the best of humors with himself ; and in Paris this is the highest degree of self-satisfaction ever registered by a human countenance . As soon as the elderly person appeared in the distance , a smile broke out over the faces of the frequenters of the boulevard , who daily , from their chairs , watch the passers-by , and indulge in the agreeable pastime of analyzing them . That smile is peculiar to Parisians ; it says so many things -- ironical , quizzical , pitying ; but nothing save the rarest of human curiosities can summon that look of interest to the faces of Parisians , sated as they are with every possible sight .