twice, his heart thumping loudly against his ribs, before he could screw up resolution to enter. He was nerved, however, by the recollection of the apartment he had just seen; it had been given up the day before by a young journalist,[9] named Marsac, who had left various souvenirs of a very pleasant life there. The street was such a bustling, noisy street—and the Rue Clarisse was so quiet, so quiet! In the new street there were two music halls in full view and generally in full blast, gay restaurants blazing with lights, where all sorts of delicious, indigestible things to eat were to be had, and such an atmosphere of jollity and movement! Monsieur Bouchard quivered with delight like a schoolboy as he thought of it, and so he marched in to take his life in his hand while breaking the news to his sister Céleste.

[9]

Mademoiselle Bouchard, a small, prim, devoted, affectionate, obstinate creature, was sitting in the drawing-room, bemoaning with Élise the loss of Pierrot. Élise, a hard-featured, hard-working creature, had such a profound contempt for the other sex that it was a wonder she ever brought herself to marry one of them. She was saying to Mademoiselle Bouchard:

[10]“Depend on it, Mademoiselle, that ungrateful Pierrot will never come back of his own accord. If he had been a she bird, now—but Pierrot is like the rest of his sex. It’s in them to run away—and run away they will.”

[10]

“He has had a quiet, peaceful home in the Rue Clarisse for seventeen years,” wailed poor Mademoiselle Bouchard.

“That’s reason enough for him to run away. What does he care about a quiet, peaceful home? He wants to be strutting around in some restaurant, drinking and swearing and turning night into day. They’re all like that. My Pierre, now, is just as ready to run away as was Pierrot, but I shall keep an eye on him.”

[11-12]

[11-12]

With an affectation of ease and debonairness, and told about the apartment near the Champs Élysées.

[13]And then Monsieur Bouchard walked in, with an affectation of case and debonairness, and told about the apartment near the Champs Élysées, whereat it seemed to poor Mademoiselle Céleste as if the Louvre had moved itself over into the Bois de Boulogne and the Seine had suddenly begun to flow backward. Of course, Monsieur Bouchard had arranged a plausible tale by 

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