Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the
wheelwright's trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards,
under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops,
because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one
beats one's arms together to warm one's self; but the masters don't like
it; they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice between
the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old
while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man is done for.
I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean!
When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but an old bird,
old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me
as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my age--and then I
had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She earned a little
also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to
her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind cuts your face, when
it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people
who have not much linen, and wait until late; if you do not wash, you
lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and water drops on you
from everywhere; you have your petticoats all damp above and below. That
penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of the Enfants-Rouges,
where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there; you
wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As
it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there is that hot steam, which
is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o'clock
in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband
beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy. She was a good girl,
who did not go to the ball, and who was very peaceable. I remember
one Shrove-Tuesday when she went to bed at eight o'clock. There, I am
telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris
is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I
tell you. Go see at M. Baloup's; and after all, I don't know what is
wanted of me."

The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things
in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and savage
ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd. The sort
of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at r