One afternoon during a difficult phase in his first marriage, Tristan Bernard was seen by a friend vacantly gazing into a shop window in the pouring rain.

Concerned, the man offered to take Bernard out for a drink. When the despondent writer declined his invitation, he pressed on: "Surely you're not going to stand out here in the rain?" he asked. "Why don't you go home?"

"I don't dare," Bernard replied. "My wife's lover is there." The other man was about to express his sympathy when Bernard continued: "...and he's a God damned bore!"