"But it's
impossible at the usual place," he answered, quivering. "The address is
known."
"Then to-morrow, at four o'clock, at that little restaurant in the Bois
where we have met before."
He had to promise, and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and
was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the
stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe
and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and
Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of their dinner that
evening.
Pierre had heard a part of the conversation between Gerard and the
Baroness. He knew what skeletons the house concealed, what physiological
and moral torture and wretchedness lay beneath all the dazzling wealth
and power. There was here an envenomed, bleeding sore, ever spreading, a
cancer eating into father, mother, daughter and son, who one and all had
thrown social bonds aside. However, the priest made his way out of the
/salons/, half stifling amidst the throng of lady-purchasers who were
making quite a triumph of the bazaar. And yonder, in the depths of the
gloom, he could picture Salvat still running and running on; while the
corpse of Laveuve seemed to him like a buffet of atrocious irony dealt to
noisy and delusive charity.
II
SPIRIT AND FLESH
How delightful was the quietude of the little ground-floor overlooking a
strip of garden in the Rue Cortot, where good Abbe Rose resided!
Hereabouts there was not even a rumble of wheels, or an echo of the
panting breath of Paris, which one heard on the other side of the height
of Montmartre.
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