The diagonal entrance to the scene of the isolated couple reflects Degas’s interest in photography and photographic composition. The picture is composed as if seen from the table in the foreground, thus increasing the viewers sense of a kind of voyeuristic participation in the scene. The two figures, who look like they belong in a Zola novel (L’Assommoir?) are clearly habitués of this place. They come to drink (her absinthe is deadly) and to find some solace for their mutual loneliness and despair.

Editor’s note: According to the notes made by Nicholas Pioch for the on-line site of this painting (The Web Museum), the couple depicted in the painting are actress and painter acquaintances of Degas, "retained in [Degas’s] memory . . . in pensive mood." Pioch’s historical notes are of interest; they belie, however, the impact made by the painting itself, and annotated here.