... Every lost chance now mocks his senseless wisdom. ...But from so much thinking and remembering the old man gets dizzy. And falls asleep bent over the café table. (1897) In the above poem Cavafy uses as setting "the back of the noisy café" where an old man is "bent over a table" with "a newspaper in front of him, without company". The old man's loneliness is illustrated much more intense, in sharp contrast to the noise and the hustle and bustle of the café. Deeply absorbed in his loneliness and "in the scorn of his miserable old age", the old man cannot help pondering all the chances he missed and all the joys he let go when he was young and "had strength, and the power of the word, and good looks". "He knows he has aged much; he feels it, he sees it." He is aware of the years that have passed ...

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