Saki's short story "Dusk" presents people in a park who
partake in that time of day that is neither day nor night. In this "gloaming" period
they pass along the walks unnoticed. On the bench beside Gortsby sits an elderly
gentleman with "a drooping air of defiance."
He belonged to that forlorn orchestra to whose
piping no one dances; he was one of the world's lamenters who induce no responsive
weeping.
The quote means that
the older man may have been someone of import in his earlier years, but now he was what
others might label a "pensioner," a man simply living out the remainder of his days
unnoticed and unvalued. In fact, as he departs Gortsby gives him no more thought than
to imagine that he returns to some mere lodging where he lives in dull habitude from
week to week.
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