olic, the royalist. But since Choulette interests you,
listen to his latest adventure. Paul Vence related it to me. I understand
it better in this street, where there are shirts and flowerpots at the
windows.

"This winter, one night when it was raining, Choulette went into a
public-house in a street the name of which I have forgotten, but which
must resemble this one, and met there an unfortunate girl whom the
waiters would not have noticed, and whom he liked for her humility. Her
name was Maria. The name was not hers. She found it nailed on her door at
the top of the stairway where she went to lodge. Choulette was touched by
this perfection of poverty and infamy. He called her his sister, and
kissed her hands. Since then he has not quitted her a moment. He takes
her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the rich students
read their reviews. He says sweet things to her. He weeps, she weeps.
They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He loves her. He calls
her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation. She was barefooted; he
gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might make stockings. And he
made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with enormous nails. He
teaches her verses that are easy to understand. He is afraid of altering
her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame where she lives in
perfect simplicity and admirable destitution."

Le Menil shrugged his shoulders.

"But that Choulette is crazy, and Paul Vence has no right to tell you
such stories. I am not austere, assuredly; but there are immoralities
that disgust me." They were walking at random. She fell into a dream.

"Yes, morality, I know--duty! But duty--it takes the devil to discover
it. I can assure you that I do not know where duty is. It's like a young
lady's turtle at Joinville. We spent all the evening looking for it under
the furniture, and when we had found it, we went to bed."

He thought there was some truth in what she said. He would think about it
when alone.

"I regret sometimes that I did not remain in the army. I know what you
are going to say--one becomes a brute in that profession. Doubtless, but
one knows exactly what one has to do, and that is a great deal in life. I
think that my uncle's life is very beautiful and very agreeable. But now
that everybody is in the army, there are neither officers nor soldiers.
It all looks like a railway station on Sunday. My uncle knew personally
all the officers and al