roat."

Marjolin was quite out of breath. When they reached the stone blocks
where the poultry were killed, and where the gas burnt more brightly,
Lisa could see that he was perspiring, and had bold, glistening eyes.
She thought he looked very handsome like that, with his broad shoulders,
big flushed face, and fair curly hair, and she looked at him so
complacently, with that air of admiration which women feel they may
safely express for quite young lads, that he relapsed into timid
bashfulness again.

"Well, Monsieur Gavard isn't here, you see," she said. "You've only made
me waste my time."

Marjolin, however, began rapidly explaining the killing of the poultry
to her. Five huge stone slabs stretched out in the direction of the Rue
Rambuteau under the yellow light of the gas jets. A woman was killing
fowls at one end; and this led him to tell Lisa that the birds were
plucked almost before they were dead, the operation thus being much
easier. Then he wanted her to feel the feathers which were lying in
heaps on the stone slabs; and told her that they were sorted and sold
for as much as nine sous the pound, according to their quality. To
satisfy him, she was also obliged to plunge her hand into the big
hampers full of down. Then he turned the water-taps, of which there was
one by every pillar. There was no end to the particulars he gave. The
blood, he said, streamed along the stone blocks, and collected into
pools on the paved floor, which attendants sluiced with water every two
hours, removing the more recent stains with coarse brushes.

When Lisa stooped over the drain which carries away the swillings,
Marjolin found a fresh text for talk. On rainy days, said he, the water
sometimes rose through this orifice and flooded the place. It had
once risen a foot high; and they had been obliged to transport all the
poultry to the other end of the cellar, which is on a higher level.
He laughed as he recalled the wild flutter of the terrified creatures.
However, he had now finished, and it seemed as though there remained
nothing else for him to show, when all at once he bethought himself of
the ventilator. Thereupon he took Lisa off to the far end of the cellar,
and told her to look up; and inside one of the turrets at the corner
angles of the pavilion she observed a sort of escape-pipe, by which the
foul atmosphere of the storerooms ascended into space.

Here, in this corner, reeking with abominable odours, Marjolin's
nost