or
social evils in order to start a society to cure them.

But to return to Pons. A stomach thus educated is sure to react upon the
owner's moral fibre; the demoralization of the man varies directly with
his progress in culinary sapience. Voluptuousness, lurking in every
secret recess of the heart, lays down the law therein. Honor and
resolution are battered in breach. The tyranny of the palate has never
been described; as a necessity of life it escapes the criticism of
literature; yet no one imagines how many have been ruined by the table.
The luxury of the table is indeed, in this sense, the courtesan's one
competitor in Paris, besides representing in a manner the credit side in
another account, where she figures as the expenditure.

With Pons' decline and fall as an artist came his simultaneous
transformation from invited guest to parasite and hanger-on; he could
not bring himself to quit dinners so excellently served for the Spartan
broth of a two-franc ordinary. Alas! alas! a shudder ran through him at
the mere thought of the great sacrifices which independence required him
to make. He felt that he was capable of sinking to even lower depths
for the sake of good living, if there were no other way of enjoying the
first and best of everything, of guzzling (vulgar but expressive word)
nice little dishes carefully prepared. Pons lived like a bird, pilfering
his meal, flying away when he had taken his fill, singing a few notes by
way of return; he took a certain pleasure in the thought that he lived
at the expense of society, which asked of him--what but the trifling
toll of grimaces? Like all confirmed bachelors, who hold their lodgings
in horror, and live as much as possible in other people's houses, Pons
was accustomed to the formulas and facial contortions which do duty for
feeling in the world; he used compliments as small change; and as far as
others were concerned, he was satisfied with the labels they bore, and
never plunged a too-curious hand into the sack.

This not intolerable phase lasted for another ten years. Such years!
Pons' life was closing with a rainy autumn. All through those years he
contrived to dine without expense by making himself necessary in the
houses which he frequented. He took the first step in the downward path
by undertaking a host of small commissions; many and many a time Pons
ran on errands instead of the porter or the servant; many a purchase he
made for his entertainers. He became