square, could be seen the
trunks of trees beyond.

This courtyard was bordered with tall poplars, which the late Bishop,
who had frequented the Tuileries, used to speak of with a smile as his
hundred guards.

Madame Bavoil and Durtal crossed this forecourt, sloping to the left
towards a wing of the building, roofed with slate.

There, on the first floor, with only a loft above lighted by round
dormers, lived the Abbe Gevresin.

They went up a narrow staircase with a rusty iron balustrade. The walls
were trickling with damp, they secreted drops, distilled spots like
black coffee; the steps were worn hollow, and thin at the ends like
spoons; they led up to a door smeared yellow, with a cast-iron knob as
black as ink. A copper ring swung in the wind at the end of a bell-rope,
knocking the chipped plaster of the wall. An indescribable smell of
stale apples and stagnant water came up the middle of the staircase from
the little outer hall below, which was paved with rows of bricks set on
edge, eaten into patterns like madrepores, while the ceiling looked like
a map, furrowed with seas that were traced in yellow by the soaking
through of the rain.

And the Abbe's little apartment, lately "done up" with a vile
red-checked paper, reeked of the tomb. It was evident that under the
shadow of the Cathedral that overhung this wing no sunshine ever dried
the walls, of which the skirting boards were rotting into powder like
brown sugar, crumbling slowly, on the icy cold polish of the floor.

"How sad to see an old man, a victim to rheumatism, housed here!"
thought Durtal.

When he went into the Abbe's room, he found the chill somewhat taken off
by a large coke fire; the priest was reading his breviary, wrapped in a
wadded gown, close to the window, of which he had drawn back the blind
to see a little better.

This room was furnished with a small iron bedstead hung with white
cotton curtains looped back by bands of red cretonne; opposite the bed
were a table covered with a cloth, and on it a desk, and a prie-dieu
below a Crucifix nailed to the wall; the remainder of the room was
fitted with bookshelves up to the ceiling. Three arm-chairs, such as are
nowhere to be seen nowadays but in religious houses or seminaries, made
of walnut wood with straw bottoms like church chairs, were set round the
table, and two more, with round rush mats for the feet, stood one on
each side of the fireplace. On the chimney-shelf was an Empire cloc