"With solitude! and that complaisant and paternal cuckold, her husband!
Well, he is the one most to be pitied now. Thanks to me, he had evenings
of quiet. I restored his wife, pliant and satisfied. He profited by my
fatigues, that sacristan. Ah, when I think of it, his sly, hypocritical
eyes, when he looked at me, told me a great deal.

"Well, the little romance is over. It's a good thing to have your heart
on strike. In my brain I still have a house of ill fame, which sometimes
catches fire, but the hired myrmidons will stamp out the blaze in a
hurry.

"When I was young and ardent the women laughed at me. Now that I am old
and stale I laugh at them. That's more in my character, old fellow," he
said to the cat, which, with ears pricked up, was listening to the
soliloquy. "Truly, Gilles de Rais is a great deal more interesting than
Mme. Chantelouve. Unfortunately, my relations with him are also drawing
to a close. Only a few more pages and the book is done. Oh, Lord! Here
comes Rateau to knock my house to pieces."

Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took
off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture. Then he
hurled himself at the bed, grappled with the mattress, got a half-Nelson
on it, and balancing himself, turning half around, hurled it onto the
springs.

Durtal, followed by his cat, went into the other room, but suddenly
Rateau ceased wrestling and came and stood before Durtal.

"Monsieur, do you know what has happened?" he blubbered.

"Why, no."

"My wife has left me."

"Left you! but she must be over sixty."

Rateau raised his eyes to heaven.

"And she ran off with another man?"

Rateau, disconsolate, let the feather duster fall from his listless
hand.

"The devil! Then, in spite of her age, your wife had needs which you
were unable to satisfy?"

The concierge shook his head and finally succeeded in saying, "It was
the other way around."

"Oh," said Durtal, considering the old caricature, shrivelled by bad air
and "three-six," "but if she is tired of that sort of thing, why did she
run off with a man?"

Rateau made a grimace of pitying contempt, "Oh, he's impotent. Good for
nothing--"

"Ah!"

"It's my job I'm sore about. The landlord won't keep a concierge that
hasn't a wife."

"Dear Lord," thought Durtal, "how hast thou answered my prayers!--Come
on, let's go over to your place," he said to Des Hermies, who, finding
Rateau's key in the door, h