l hours in a little stuffy room filled with three or
four dozen obviously unwashed humans, reeking with bad tobacco and worse
absinthe, and pervaded by the ghosts of inferior meals, it becomes more
penitential than the treadmill. A dog's life, said Paragot. Whereat
Narcisse sniffed. It was not at all the life for a philosopher's dog,
said he.

On the morning of the last day of our engagement, Blanquette entered
Paragot's bedchamber as usual, with the bowls of coffee and hunks of
coarse bread that formed our early meal. I had risen from my manger and
crept into Paragot's room for warmth, and while he slept I sat on the
floor by the window reading a book. As for Blanquette she had dressed
and eaten long before and had helped the servant of the cafe to sweep
and wash the tables and make the coffee for the household. It was not in
her peasant's nature to be abed, which, now I come to think of it, must
be a characteristic of the artistic temperament. Paragot loved it. He
only woke when Blanquette brought him his coffee. Ordinarily he would
remonstrate with picturesque oaths at being aroused from his slumbers,
and having taken the coffee from her hands, would dismiss her with a
laugh. He observed the most rigid propriety in his relations with
Blanquette. But this morning he directed her to remain.

"Sit down, my child; I have to speak to you."

As there was no chair or stool in the uncomfortable room--it had lean-to
walls and bare dirty boards and contained only the bed and a table--she
sat obediently at the foot of the bed next to Narcisse and folded her
hands in her lap. Paragot broke his bread into his coffee and fed
himself with the sops by means of a battered table-spoon. When he had
swallowed two or three mouthfuls he addressed her.

"My good Blanquette, I have been wandering through the world for many
years in search of the springs of Life. I do not find them by scraping
catgut in the Cafe Brasserie Dubois."

"It would be better to go to Orleans," said Blanquette. "We were at the
Cafe de la Couronne there last winter and I danced."

"Not even your dancing at Orleans would help me in my quest," said he.

"I don't understand," murmured Blanquette looking at him helplessly.

"Have the kindness," said he, pointing to the table, "to smash that
confounded violin into a thousand pieces."

"_Mon Dieu!_ What is the matter?" cried Blanquette.

"It does not please me."

"I know it is not a good one," said Blanquette.