basket; after throwing
into it three or four pieces of turf, a little bundle of wood, and some
charcoal, she covered all this fuel with a cabbage leaf; then, going to
the further end of the shop, she took from a chest a large round loaf,
cut off a slice, and selecting a magnificent radish with the eye of a
connoisseur, divided it in two, made a hole in it, which she filled with
gray salt joined the two pieces together again, and placed it carefully
by the side of the bread, on the cabbage leaf which separated the
eatables from the combustibles. Finally, taking some embers from the
stove, she put them into a little earthen pot, containing ashes, which
she placed also in the basket.

Then, reascending to her top step, Mother Arsene said to Rodin: "Here is
your basket, sir."

"A thousand thanks, my good lady," answered Rodin, and plunging his
hand into the pocket of his trousers, he drew forth eight sous, which he
counted out only one by one to the greengrocer, and said to her, as he
carried off his store: "Presently, when I come down again, I will return
your basket as usual."

"Quite at your service, my dear sir, quite at your service," said Mother
Arsene.

Rodin tucked his umbrella under his left arm, took up the greengrocer's
basket with his right hand, entered the dark passage, crossed the little
court and mounted with light step to the second story of a dilapidated
building; there, drawing a key from his pocket, he opened a door, which
he locked carefully after him. The first of the two rooms which he
occupied was completely unfurnished, as for the second, it is impossible
to imagine a more gloomy and miserable den. Papering so much worn, torn
and faded, that no one could recognize its primitive color, bedecked
the walls. A wretched flock-bed, covered with a moth-fretted blanket; a
stool, and a little table of worm-eaten wood; an earthenware stove, as
cracked as old china; a trunk with a padlock, placed under the bed--such
was the furniture of this desolate hole. A narrow window, with dirty
panes, hardly gave any light to this room, which was almost deprived
of air by the height of the building in front; two old cotton pocket
handkerchiefs, fastened together with pins, and made to slide upon a
string stretched across the window, served for curtains. The plaster
of the roof, coming through the broken and disjointed tiles, showed the
extreme neglect of the inhabitant of this abode. After locking his door,
Rodin t