left his room and went down the stairs to the first floor.
The bar was full of customers. There were no free tables. Louis looked around and wondered how such a crowd could fit into the establishment. There was nowhere for the apple to fall. From their appearance, he understood that the visitors were not from these places. It was hard to believe that they were from neighboring villages or nearby cities. Most of them were dressed somehow atypically for the current times, and many spoke in unfamiliar languages and strange dialects, and often used long-outdated words. Then it turned out that most of them were not French at all and their native language was different, hence the strong accent. It also looked interesting that among the visitors there were both representatives of the working classes – blacksmiths, grocers, fishermen, carpenters, butchers and other commoners, and people from the upper classes – nobles, merchants, close aristocratic families and even those who looked like patricians of the distant past.
Now it was the completely different establishment. It didn’t seem to Louis to be as nice and calm a place as it had looked yesterday. There was an atmosphere in the bar that he did not like at all. He wanted to get out of this place as quickly as possible, and if he returned, it would be solely to repay the debt to the bartender. This place made him feel intense discomfort, so much so that he even forgot about the loss. How could such different people gather in one place, and even sit with each other at the same table and have a heart-to-heart conversation over a glass? Rich with rich, poor with poor. It has always been this way, and what Louis’s eyes saw, any normal person would consider unnatural and wrong. This is against the established norms of society. But in some incomprehensible way, these people still coexist quite harmoniously within the same room and, it seems, neither one nor the other is in any hurry to leave the building or at least somehow protect themselves from representatives of another class.
In the village where Louis lives, there are no rich people and they are not treated with respect. Every village resident imagined a wealthy person as the result of doing business in which there is no place for decency and justice, but only selfishness and greed.
Be that as it may, he decided that he should return home as soon as possible.
– Um… – Louis drawled, walking up to the counter, squeezing between two customers – Albert?
– Yes?
– Thank you for yesterday. If you don’t mind, I’ll go home and drop off the money this evening.
– Oh, sure.
It was noisy around. Everyone was talking about something. At a table in a corner four people took turns playing elimination backgammon. A couple of tables gathered those who were puzzled by the search for answers to the questions of the universe, the existence of a certain balance regarding karma for misdeeds, how human freedom is expressed, where the line between the forbidden and the permitted lies, and other philosophical topics. Among the rest were those who washed down their grief with the cheapest alcohol; someone was reading something diligently; at the foot of the stairs a couple of moderately sober and very brave clients suddenly had the epiphany that it was time to sort things out, but not with idle chatter, but exclusively in a fist fight with an admixture of squint under the influence of a liter of bourbon. There were also those who threw dice, after which the loser drank one hundred grams from a personal bottle that stood near the glass and the winner was the one who had more contents left in the bottle.
Throughout the bar there was a real aroma of cognac, wine, vodka, whiskey, beer, absinthe, rum and much more that the visitors were rapidly pouring into themselves. This place looked like a bottomless kingdom of alcohol.
On the approaches to the exit, a mustachioed German with a heavy belly appeared in front of Louis. He smelled strongly of beer, especially when he let out a powerful burp as soon as he opened the door.
No matter how different all the visitors were, they were all united by one thing in common – they drank constantly, and most of them did this until sober reason left their minds for a while, and the next day they were again put to execution.
Louis got out, went down the stairs and walked through the forest in the opposite direction from the front, where the village was located.
He walked a hundred meters when a silhouette began to appear before his eyes. As he approached, he could see the outline of the “FREE DRINKS FOR YOUR SOULS” establishment.
“I didn’t turn anywhere,” Louis thought.
He walked around the building and headed in the same direction again.
Five minutes passed and the same bar appeared in front of him. So he continued to wander through the forest for about half an hour, each time bumping into the bar.
For a moment Louis thought that maybe he was doing something wrong and decided to approach two visitors sitting on the steps of the entrance staircase – bearded and odorous owners of beer bellies. They were still quite sober, or at least they seemed so.
Louis leaned over to two gentlemen dressed in stained shirts that were either dirt or soot and asked:
– Gentlemen, could you help? I left the bar and went straight west twice already, but for some reason I still came back here. Can you tell me which direction I need to go to get to the trail?
The two pot-bellied and clumsy strangers only laughed loudly in response. They almost burst their plump bellies, as if someone had told them a joke.
Louis considered this reaction to his question an insult, but he did not speak about it to their faces. He was from a different culture with them.
He approached a lady of about thirty-five standing at the railing, dressed in a strict crimson dress, as if she was preparing for some kind of masquerade ball.
– Excuse me, madam. Can you help?
– Of course.
– You don’t know how to get to the road, otherwise I…
Louis didn’t have time to finish speaking when the cultured-looking lady answered in a rather harsh manner:
– If you want to make fun of someone, then have a conscience, don’t do it to a woman.
Are you all crazy here, or what? What kind of madhouse!?
Louis hurriedly went inside. Albert will definitely answer his question. He might be the only one here who still has a brain.
He walked up to the bar and called out:
– Albert?
The bartender turned his polite gaze towards him.
– Ah, Louis. Already?
– Albert, tell me why…
Before he could finish speaking, the bartender handed him a piece of paper with some notes. The names of the drinks that Louis drank the day before were indicated there, and opposite each name was the number of days. A line was drawn at the bottom, and under it the final figure was 3 days.
– What is this? – Louis asked in bewilderment.
– This is your credit, Louis – the bartender calmly answered. – You will leave here only when you pay off your loan to the establishment.
