ries existed," said
Bixiou; "for in Paris there are no great gains without corresponding
outlays. The strongest heads are liable to crack there, as if to
give vent to their steam. Those who make much money have vices or
fancies,--no doubt to establish an equilibrium."

"And now that the lottery is abolished?" asked Gazonal.

"Oh! now she has a nephew for whom she is hoarding."

When they reached the Vieille rue du Temple the three friends entered
one of the oldest houses in that street and passed up a shaking
staircase, the steps of which, caked with mud, led them in
semi-darkness, and through a stench peculiar to houses on an alley, to
the third story, where they beheld a door which painting alone could
render; literature would have to spend too many nights in suitably
describing it.

An old woman, in keeping with that door, and who might have been that
door in human guise, ushered the three friends into a room which served
as an ante-chamber, where, in spite of the warm atmosphere which fills
the streets of Paris, they felt the icy chill of crypts about them. A
damp air came from an inner courtyard which resembled a huge air-shaft;
the light that entered was gray, and the sill of the window was filled
with pots of sickly plants. In this room, which had a coating of some
greasy, fuliginous substance, the furniture, the chairs, the table, were
all most abject. The floor tiles oozed like a water-cooler. In short,
every accessory was in keeping with the fearful old woman of the hooked
nose, ghastly face, and decent rags who directed the "consulters" to
sit down, informing them that only one at a time could be admitted to
Madame.

Gazonal, who played the intrepid, entered bravely, and found himself in
presence of one of those women forgotten by Death, who no doubt forgets
them intentionally in order to leave some samples of Itself among the
living. He saw before him a withered face in which shone fixed gray
eyes of wearying immobility; a flattened nose, smeared with snuff;
knuckle-bones well set up by muscles that, under pretence of being
hands, played nonchalantly with a pack of cards, like some machine
the movement of which is about to run down. The body, a species of
broom-handle decently covered with clothes, enjoyed the advantages of
death and did not stir. Above the forehead rose a coif of black velvet.
Madame Fontaine, for it was really a woman, had a black hen on her right
hand and a huge toad, named Astaroth