four o’clock
Rain affected him no more than the fine weather did ; he was , like the players themselves , an intermediary species between a Parisian who has the lowest intellect of his kind and an animal which has the highest . In other respects , pallid and shrunken , indifferent to his own person , vacant in mind , he often came bareheaded , showing his sparse white hair , and his square , yellow , bald skull , like the knee of a beggar seen through his tattered trousers . His mouth was half-open , no ideas were in his glance , no precise object appeared in his movements ; he never smiled ; he never raised his eyes to heaven , but kept them habitually on the ground , where he seemed to be looking for something . At four o'clock an old woman arrived , to take him Heaven knows where ; which she did by towing him along by the arm , as a young girl drags a wilful goat which still wants to browse by the wayside . This old man was a horrible thing to see . In the afternoon of the day when Jules Desmarets left Paris , his travelling-carriage , in which he was alone , passed rapidly through the rue de l'Est , and came out upon the esplanade of the Observatoire at the moment when the old man , leaning against a tree , had allowed his cane to be taken from his hand amid the noisy vociferations of the players , pacifically irritated . Jules , thinking that he recognized that face , felt an impulse to stop , and at the same instant the carriage came to a standstill ; for the postilion , hemmed in by some handcarts , had too much respect for the game to call upon the players to make way for him .