assionate tone
and in an amazingly landlady-of-a-boarding-house spirit of false
persuasiveness:

"You will be very comfortable here, Senor. It is so peaceful here in the
street. Sometimes one may think oneself in a village. It's only a
hundred and twenty-five francs for the friends of the King. And I shall
take such good care of you that your very heart will be able to rest."

CHAPTER II

Dona Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant sister and
all I could say in return for that inquiry was that the peasant sister
was in her own way amiable. At this she clicked her tongue amusingly and
repeated a remark she had made before: "She likes young men. The younger
the better." The mere thought of those two women being sisters aroused
one's wonder. Physically they were altogether of different design. It
was also the difference between living tissue of glowing loveliness with
a divine breath, and a hard hollow figure of baked clay.

Indeed Therese did somehow resemble an achievement, wonderful enough in
its way, in unglazed earthenware. The only gleam perhaps that one could
find on her was that of her teeth, which one used to get between her dull
lips unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably, because it was
never associated with a smile. She smiled with compressed mouth. It was
indeed difficult to conceive of those two birds coming from the same
nest. And yet . . . Contrary to what generally happens, it was when one
saw those two women together that one lost all belief in the possibility
of their relationship near or far. It extended even to their common
humanity. One, as it were, doubted it. If one of the two was
representative, then the other was either something more or less than
human. One wondered whether these two women belonged to the same scheme
of creation. One was secretly amazed to see them standing together,
speaking to each other, having words in common, understanding each other.
And yet! . . . Our psychological sense is the crudest of all; we don't
know, we don't perceive how superficial we are. The simplest shades
escape us, the secret of changes, of relations. No, upon the whole, the
only feature (and yet with enormous differences) which Therese had in
common with her sister, as I told Dona Rita, was amiability.

"For, you know, you are a most amiable person yourself," I went on.
"It's one of your characteristics, of course much more precious than in
other