"
And he poured out a torrent of epigrams on certain political personages,
of whom the best known gives us, in this century, a new edition of
Moliere's _Tartufe_.
"All that has nothing to do with my question," retorted Bianchon. "I
want to know the reason for what you have just been doing, and why you
founded this mass."
"Faith! my dear boy," said Desplein, "I am on the verge of the tomb; I
may safely tell you about the beginning of my life."
At this moment Bianchon and the great man were in the Rue des
Quatre-Vents, one of the worst streets in Paris. Desplein pointed to
the sixth floor of one of the houses looking like obelisks, of which
the narrow door opens into a passage with a winding staircase at the
end, with windows appropriately termed "borrowed lights"--or, in French,
_jours de souffrance_. It was a greenish structure; the ground floor
occupied by a furniture-dealer, while each floor seemed to shelter a
different and independent form of misery. Throwing up his arm with a
vehement gesture, Desplein exclaimed:
"I lived up there for two years."
"I know; Arthez lived there; I went up there almost every day during my
first youth; we used to call it then the pickle-jar of great men! What
then?"
"The mass I have just attended is connected with some events which took
place at the time when I lived in the garret where you say Arthez lived;
the one with the window where the clothes line is hanging with linen
over a pot of flowers.
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