  The discrete states in the $c=1$ string are shown to be the physical states
of a certain topological sigma model. We define a set of new fields directly
from $c=1$ variables, in terms of which the BRST charge and energy-momentum
tensor are rewritten as those of the topological sigma model. Remarkably,
ground ring generator $x$ turns out to be a coordinate of the sigma model. All
of the discrete states realize a graded ring which contains ground ring as a
subset.
