time, even after the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not
stop short at the precise moment when the key is lost.

M. Mabeuf had his innocent pleasures. These pleasures were inexpensive
and unexpected; the merest chance furnished them. One day, Mother
Plutarque was reading a romance in one corner of the room. She was
reading aloud, finding that she understood better thus. To read aloud is
to assure one's self of what one is reading. There are people who read
very loud, and who have the appearance of giving themselves their word
of honor as to what they are perusing.

It was with this sort of energy that Mother Plutarque was reading the
romance which she had in hand. M. Mabeuf heard her without listening to
her.

In the course of her reading, Mother Plutarque came to this phrase. It
was a question of an officer of dragoons and a beauty:--

"--The beauty pouted, and the dragoon--"

Here she interrupted herself to wipe her glasses.

"Bouddha and the Dragon," struck in M. Mabeuf in a low voice. "Yes, it
is true that there was a dragon, which, from the depths of its cave,
spouted flame through his maw and set the heavens on fire. Many stars
had already been consumed by this monster, which, besides, had the claws
of a tiger. Bouddha went into its den and succeeded in converting the
dragon. That is a good book that you are reading, Mother Plutarque.
There is no more beautiful legend in existence."

And M. Mabeuf fell into a delicious revery.

CHAPTER V--POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR FOR MISERY

Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into
the clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, little
by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius met
Courfeyrac and sought out M. Mabeuf. Very rarely, however; twice a month
at most.

Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outer
boulevards, or in the Champs-de-Mars, or in the least frequented alleys
of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a market
garden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the dung-heap, the horse
turning the water-wheel. The passers-by stared at him in surprise, and
some of them thought his attire suspicious and his mien sinister. He was
only a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way.

It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house,
and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abode
there. He was known