abusing him, and sold everything for drink. Rosanette could
see, as if it were yesterday, the room they occupied with the looms
ranged lengthwise against the windows, the pot boiling on the stove, the
bed painted like mahogany, a cupboard facing it, and the obscure loft
where she used to sleep up to the time when she was fifteen years old.
At length a gentleman made his appearance on the scene--a fat man with a
face of the colour of boxwood, the manners of a devotee, and a suit of
black clothes. Her mother and this man had a conversation together, with
the result that three days afterwards--Rosanette stopped, and with a
look in which there was as much bitterness as shamelessness:

"It was done!"

Then, in response to a gesture of Frederick.

"As he was married (he would have been afraid of compromising himself in
his own house), I was brought to a private room in a restaurant, and
told that I would be happy, that I would get a handsome present.

"At the door, the first thing that struck me was a candelabrum of
vermilion on a table, on which there were two covers. A mirror on the
ceiling showed their reflections, and the blue silk hangings on the
walls made the entire apartment resemble an alcove; I was seized with
astonishment. You understand--a poor creature who had never seen
anything before. In spite of my dazed condition of mind, I got
frightened. I wanted to go away. However, I remained.

"The only seat in the room was a sofa close beside the table. It was so
soft that it gave way under me. The mouth of the hot-air stove in the
middle of the carpet sent out towards me a warm breath, and there I sat
without taking anything. The waiter, who was standing near me, urged me
to eat. He poured out for me immediately a large glass of wine. My head
began to swim, I wanted to open the window. He said to me:

"'No, Mademoiselle! that is forbidden.'"

"And he left me.

"The table was covered with a heap of things that I had no knowledge of.
Nothing there seemed to me good. Then I fell back on a pot of jam, and
patiently waited. I did not know what prevented him from coming. It was
very late--midnight at last--I couldn't bear the fatigue any longer.
While pushing aside one of the pillows, in order to hear better, I found
under my hand a kind of album--a book of engravings, they were vulgar
pictures. I was sleeping on top of it when he entered the room."

She hung down her head and remained pensive.

The leaves rustl