was now sitting up in bed with hands clasped, seemingly entreating
Heaven with devout fervor. Helene allowed her to go on thus for a
considerable time, and even smiled. The old woman's chatter, in fact,
ended by lulling her into a pleasant drowsiness, and when she went off
she promised to give her a bonnet and gown, as soon as she should be
able to get about again.

Throughout that week Helene busied herself with Mother Fetu. Her
afternoon visit became an item in her daily life. She felt a strange
fondness for the Passage des Eaux. She liked that steep lane for its
coolness and quietness and its ever-clean pavement, washed on rainy
days by the water rushing down from the heights. A strange sensation
thrilled her as she stood at the top and looked at the narrow alley
with its steep declivity, usually deserted, and only known to the few
inhabitants of the neighboring streets. Then she would venture through
an archway dividing a house fronting the Rue Raynouard, and trip down
the seven flights of broad steps, in which lay the bed of a pebbly
stream occupying half of the narrow way. The walls of the gardens on
each side bulged out, coated with a grey, leprous growth; umbrageous
trees drooped over, foliage rained down, here and there an ivy plant
thickly mantled the stonework, and the chequered verdure, which only
left glimpses of the blue sky above, made the light very soft and
greeny. Halfway down Helene would stop to take breath, gazing at the
street-lamp which hung there, and listening to the merry laughter in
the gardens, whose doors she had never seen open. At times an old
woman panted up with the aid of the black, shiny, iron handrail fixed
in the wall to the right; a lady would come, leaning on her parasol as
on a walking-stick; or a band of urchins would run down, with a great
stamping of feet. But almost always Helene found herself alone, and
this steep, secluded, shady descent was to her a veritable delight
--like a path in the depths of a forest. At the bottom she would raise
her eyes, and the sight of the narrow, precipitous alley she had just
descended made her feel somewhat frightened.

She glided into the old woman's room with the quiet and coolness of
the Passage des Eaux clinging to her garments. This woefully wretched
den no longer affected her painfully. She moved about there as if in
her own rooms, opening the round attic window to admit the fresh air,
and pushing the table into a corner if it came in