Monsieur Fasquelle owns the Café Mably, a restaurant that Roquentin frequents. Fasquelle is attentive to his customers during the busiest parts of the day, but when business slows down in the afternoon, he tends to go to sleep. Roquentin associates his behavior with loneliness, suggesting that Fasquelle relies on interactions with other people for energy. On a foggy Friday, Roquentin goes to Café Mably for breakfast and finds that Fasquelle has not yet come downstairs to serve his customers. After a woman makes a throwaway comment insinuating that Fasquelle might be dead, Roquentin gradually becomes frantic imagining that this is the case. After he is unable to convince the Café Mably waiter to go upstairs and check on Fasquelle, Roquentin becomes convinced that Fasquelle is dead. The thought sends Roquentin into a tailspin, worsened by the foggy weather, until he later finds out that Fasquelle has merely fallen ill with the flu.