ous and edifying
miscellany concerning church bells_ by Dom Remi Carre; another _Edifying
miscellany_, anonymous; a _Treatise of bells_ by Jean-Baptiste Thiers,
curate of Champrond and Vibraye; a ponderous tome by an architect named
Blavignac; a smaller work entitled _Essay on the symbolism of bells_ by
a parish priest of Poitiers; a _Notice_ by the abbe Baraud; then a whole
series of brochures, with covers of grey paper, bearing no titles.

"It's no collection at all," said Carhaix with a sigh. "The best ones
are wanting, the _De campanis commentarius_ of Angelo Rocca and the _De
tintinnabulo_ of Percichellius, but they are so hard to find, and so
expensive when you do find them."

A glance sufficed for the rest of the books, most of them being pious
works, Latin and French Bibles, an _Imitation of Christ_, Goerres'
_Mystik_ in five volumes, the abbe Aubert's _History and theory of
religious symbolism_, Pluquet's _Dictionary of heresies_, and several
lives of saints.

"Ah, monsieur, my own books are not much account, but Des Hermies lends
me what he knows will interest me."

"Don't talk so much!" said his wife. "Give monsieur a chance to sit
down," and she handed Durtal a brimming glass aromatic with the
acidulous perfume of genuine cider.

In response to his compliments she told him that the cider came from
Brittany and was made by relatives of hers at Landevennec, her and
Carhaix's native village.

She was delighted when Durtal affirmed that long ago he had spent a day
in Landevennec.

"Why, then we know each other already!" she said, shaking hands with him
again.

The room was heated to suffocation by a stove whose pipe zigzagged over
to the window and out through a sheet-iron square nailed to the sash in
place of one of the panes. Carhaix and his good wife, with her honest,
weak face and frank, kind eyes, were the most restful of people. Durtal,
made drowsy by the warmth and the quiet domesticity, let his thoughts
wander. He said to himself, "If I had a place like this, above the roofs
of Paris, I would fix it up and make of it a real haven of refuge. Here,
in the clouds, alone and aloof, I would work away on my book and take my
time about it, years perhaps. What inconceivable happiness it would be
to escape from the age, and, while the waves of human folly were
breaking against the foot of the tower, to sit up here, out of it all,
and pore over antique tomes by the shaded light of the lamp."

He smiled