," the Abbe went on, "this exile cannot interfere with any
of your schemes in art. You talk of writing the Lives of Saints; will
you not work at them far better in the silence of the country than in
the uproar of Paris?"

"The country--the provinces! The mere idea overpowers me," exclaimed
Durtal. "If you could but imagine the impression it suggests to me, the
sort of atmosphere, the kind of smell it presents to my brain. You know
the huge cupboards you find in old houses, with double doors, and lined
within with blue paper that is always damp. Well, at the mere name of
the provinces I feel as if one of these were opened in my face, and I
got a full blast of the stuffiness that comes out of it!--And to put the
finishing touch to the vision by combining taste and smell, I have only
to bite one of the biscuits they make nowadays of Lord knows what,
reeking the moment you taste them, of fish glue and plaster that has
been rained upon, I have only to eat that cold, insipid paste and sniff
at a musty closet, and at once the lugubrious picture rises before me of
some Godforsaken place!--Your Chartres will no doubt smell like
that--Pah!"

"Oh, oh!" cried Madame Bavoil. "But you cannot know much about it, since
you have never been to the place."

"Let him be!" said the Abbe, laughing. "He will get over his
prejudices." And he went on,--

"Just explain this inconsistency: here is a Parisian who likes his city
so little that he seeks out the most deserted nook to live in, the
quietest, the least frequented, the spot that is most like a provincial
retreat. He has a horror of the Boulevards, of public promenades, and of
theatres; he buries himself in a hole, and stops his ears that he may
not hear the noises around him; but, when he has a chance of improving
on this scheme of existence, of ripening in real silence far from the
crowd, when he can invert the conditions of life, and, instead of being
a provincial Parisian, can become a Parisian of the provinces, he shies
and kicks!"

"It is a fact," Durtal admitted when he was alone, "a positive fact
that the capital is unprofitable to me. I never see anybody now, and
shall be reduced to still more utter solitude when these friends are
gone. I shall, for all purposes, be quite as well off at Chartres;
I can study at my ease amid peaceful surroundings, within reach of
a cathedral of far greater interest than Notre Dame de Paris. And
besides--besides--there is another question of