owever, you must not expect me to answer you; God has vouchsafed
me, to refute your errors, neither eloquence nor force of intellect. I
should only be afraid, by my inadequate replies, of giving you occasion
to blaspheme and further reasons for hardening your heart. I feel a
strong desire to help you; yet the sole fruit of my importunate efforts
would be to...."

The discussion was cut short by a tremendous shout coming from the head
of the column to warn the whole regiment of famished citizens that the
baker was opening his doors. The line began to push forward, but very,
very slowly. A National Guard on duty admitted the purchasers one by
one. The baker, his wife and boy presided over the sale, assisted by two
Civil Commissaries. These, wearing a tricoloured riband round the left
arm, saw that the customers belonged to the Section and were given their
proper share in proportion to the number of mouths to be filled.

The _citoyen_ Brotteaux made the quest of pleasure the one and only aim
of life, holding that the reason and the senses, the sole judges when
gods there were none, were unable to conceive any other. Accordingly,
finding the painter's remarks somewhat overfull of fanaticism, and the
Monk's of simplicity, to please his taste, this wise man, bent on
squaring his behaviour with his views and relieving the tedium of
waiting, drew from the bulging pocket of his plum-coloured coat his
Lucretius, now as always his chiefest solace and faithful comforter. The
binding of red morocco was chafed by hard wear, and the _citoyen_
Brotteaux had judiciously erased the coat of arms that once embellished
it,--three islets or, which his father the financier had bought for
good money down. He opened the book at the passage where the poet
philosopher, who is for curing men of the futile and mischievous passion
of love, surprises a woman in the arms of her serving-women in a state
bound to offend all a lover's susceptibilities. The _citoyen_ Brotteaux
read the lines, though not without casting a surreptitious glance at the
golden pate of the pretty girl in front of him and enjoying a sniff of
the heady perfume of the little slut's hot skin. The poet Lucretius was
a wise man, but he had only one string to his bow; his disciple
Brotteaux had several.

So he read on, taking two steps forward every quarter of an hour. His
ear, soothed by the grave and cadenced numbers of the Latin Muse, was
deaf to the women's scolding about the mo