red that this grandmother with
such pale lips, had the set of teeth of a young girl, and still, thanks
to the softening influence of alcohol, I was not angry with her for this
artifice. I even thought it particularly praiseworthy, since, after all,
the poor creature thus carried out her calling conscientiously, which
was to seduce us. For there was no possible doubt about the matter, that
this grandmother was nothing more nor less than a prostitute.

And then, drunk! Horribly drunk, much more drunk than Ledantec and I
were, for we really could manage to say: "Oh! Pity the poor, poor old
woman!" While she was incapable of articulating a single syllable, of
making a gesture, or even of imparting a gleam of promise, a furtive
flash of allurement to her eyes. With her hands crossed on her stomach,
and resting against the front of the public-house, with her whole body
as stiff as if she had been in a state of catalepsy, she had nothing
alluring about her, except her sad smile, and that inspired us with all
the more pity because she was even more drunk than we were, and so, by
identical, spontaneous movement, we each of us seized her by an arm, to
take her into the public-house with us.

To our great astonishment she resisted, sprang back, and so was in the
shadow again, out of the ray of light which came through the door,
while, at the same time, she began to walk through the darkness and to
drag us with her, for she was clinging to our arms. We followed her
without speaking and without knowing where we were going, but without
the least uneasiness on that score. Only, when she suddenly burst into
violent sobs as she walked, Ledantec and I began to sob in unison.

The cold and the fog had suddenly congested our brains again, and we had
again lost all precise consciousness of our acts, of our thoughts and of
our sensations. Our sobs had nothing of grief in them, but we were
floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss, and I can remember that at
that moment it was no longer the exterior world which seemed to me as if
I were looking at it through the penumbra of an aquarium; it was I
myself, an _I_ composed of three, which was changing into something that
was floating adrift in something, though what it was I did not know,
composed of palpable fog and intangible water, and it was exquisitely
delightful.

From that moment I remember nothing more until what follows, and which
had the effect of a clap of thunder on me, and made m