hich he
had promised it to me expired, and as my man did not appear, I became
uneasy, and started in search of him. I found him in a hole about as big
as my fist, almost pitch-dark, without the smallest scrap of curtain or
hanging to cover the nakedness of his walls, a couple of straw-bottomed
chairs, a truckle-bed with a quilt riddled by the moths, a box in the
corner of the chimney and rags of every sort stuck upon it, a small tin
lamp to which a bottle served as support, and on a shelf some dozen
first-rate books. I sat talking there for three-quarters of an hour. My
man was as bare as a worm, lean, black, dry, but perfectly serene. He
said nothing, but munched his crust of bread with good appetite, and
bestowed a caress from time to time on his beloved, on the miserable
bedstead that took up two-thirds of his room. If I had never learnt
before that happiness resides in the soul, my Epictetus of Hyacinth
Street would have taught it me right thoroughly."[47]

The history of one of these ragged clients is to our point. "Among
those," he wrote to Madame Voland,[48] "whom chance and misery sent to
my address was one Glenat, who knew mathematics, wrote a good hand, and
was in want of bread. I did all I could to extricate him from his
embarrassments. I went begging for customers for him on every side. If
he came at meal-times, I would not let him go; if he lacked shoes, I
gave him them; now and then I slipped a shilling into his hands as well.
he had the air of the worthiest man in the world, and he even bore his
neediness with a certain gaiety that used to amuse me. I was fond of
chatting with him; he seemed to set little store by fortune, fame, and
most of the other things that charm or dazzle us in life. Seven or eight
days ago Damilaville wrote to send this man to him, for one of his
friends who had a manuscript for him to copy. I send him; the manuscript
is entrusted to him--a work on religion and government. I do not know
how it came about, but that manuscript is now in the hands of the
lieutenant of police. Damilaville gives me word of this. I hasten to my
friend Glenat, to warn him to count no more upon me. 'And why am I not
to count upon you?' 'Because you are a marked man. The police have their
eyes upon you and 'tis impossible to send work to you.' 'But, my dear
sir, there's no risk, so long as you entrust nothing reprehensible to my
hands. The police only come here when they scent game. I cannot tell how
they d