chair, excited by the wine and by pride, and looked about him.
Carrots, cabbages, and onions gave out their strong odor of vegetables
in the closed room, that coarse smell of the garden blended with the
sweet, penetrating odor of strawberries and the delicate, slight,
evanescent fragrance of a basket of peaches.

The "Rosier" took one of these and ate it, although he was as full as
an egg. Then, all at once, wild with joy, he began to dance about the
store, and something rattled in his waistcoat.

He was surprised, and put his hand in his pocket and brought out the
purse containing the five hundred francs, which he had forgotten in
his agitation. Five hundred francs! What a fortune! He poured the gold
pieces out on the counter and spread them out with his big hand with a
slow, caressing touch so as to see them all at the same time. There were
twenty-five, twenty-five round gold pieces, all gold! They glistened on
the wood in the dim light and he counted them over and over, one by one.
Then he put them back in the purse, which he replaced in his pocket.

Who will ever know or who can tell what a terrible conflict took place
in the soul of the "Rosier" between good and evil, the tumultuous attack
of Satan, his artifices, the temptations which he offered to this timid
virgin heart? What suggestions, what imaginations, what desires were
not invented by the evil one to excite and destroy this chosen one?
He seized his hat, Mme. Husson's saint, his hat, which still bore the
little bunch of orange blossoms, and going out through the alley at the
back of the house, he disappeared in the darkness.

Virginie, the fruiterer, on learning that her son had returned, went
home at once, and found the house empty. She waited, without thinking
anything about it at first; but at the end of a quarter of an hour she
made inquiries. The neighbors had seen Isidore come home and had not
seen him go out again. They began to look for him, but could not find
him. His mother, in alarm, went to the mayor. The mayor knew nothing,
except that he had left him at the door of his home. Mme. Husson had
just retired when they informed her that her protege had disappeared.
She immediately put on her wig, dressed herself and went to Virginie's
house. Virginie, whose plebeian soul was readily moved, was weeping
copiously amid her cabbages, carrots and onions.

They feared some accident had befallen him. What could it be? Commandant
Desbarres notified th