What Zograffi would have to realize was that Elie had come to the end, and there was no farther-on for him. Nothing. Emptiness.
They could do anything to him they liked. They could prescribe any punishment. But they mustn't force him to leave. That was beyond him. he would rather sit down on the curbstone and let himself die there in the sun.
He was tired. For the others, for a man like Zograffi, did that word have the terrible significance it had for him?

Author: Georges Simenon