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distress. And so a third experiment was beginning for him, the supreme

battle of justice against charity, in which his heart and his mind would

struggle together in that great Paris, so full of terrible, unknown

things. The need for the divine still battled within him against

domineering intelligence. How among the masses would one ever be able to

content the thirst for the mysterious? Leaving the _elite_ on one side,

would science suffice to pacify desire, lull suffering, and satisfy the

dream? And what would become of himself in the bankruptcy of that same

charity, which for three years had alone kept him erect by occupying his

every hour, and giving him the illusion of self-devotion, of being useful

to others? It seemed, all at once, as if the ground sank beneath him, and

he heard nothing save the cry of the masses, silent so long, but now

demanding justice, growling and threatening to take their share, which

was withheld from them by force and ruse. Nothing more, it seemed, could

delay the inevitable catastrophe, the fratricidal class warfare that

would sweep away the olden world, which was condemned to disappear

beneath the mountain of its crimes. Every hour with frightful sadness he

expected the collapse, Paris steeped in blood, Paris in flames. And his

horror of all violence froze him; he knew not where to seek the new

belief which might dissipate the peril. Fully conscious, though he was,

that the social and religious problems are but one, and are alone in

question in the dreadful daily labour of Paris, he was too deeply

troubled himself, too far removed from ordinary things by his position as

a priest, and too sorely rent by doubt and powerlessness to tell as yet

where might be truth, and health, and life. Ah! to be healthy and to

live, to content at last both heart and reason in the peace, the certain,

simply honest labour, which man has come to accomplish upon this earth!

The mass was finished, and Pierre descended from the altar, when the

weeping mother, near whom he passed, caught hold of a corner of the

chasuble with her trembling hands, and kissed it with wild fervour, as

one may kiss some relic of a saint from whom one expects salvation. She

thanked him for the miracle which he must have accomplished, certain as

she felt that she would find her child cured. And he was deeply stirred

by that love, that ardent faith of hers, in spite of the sudden and yet

keener distress which he felt at being in no wise the sovereign minister

that she thought him, the minister able to obtain a respite from Death.

But he dismissed her consoled and strengthened, and it was with an ardent

prayer that he entreated the unknown but conscious Power to succour the

poor creature. Then, when he had divested himself in the sacristy, and

found himself again out of doors before the basilica, lashed by the keen

wintry wind, a mortal shiver came upon him, and froze him, while through

the mist he looked to see if a whirlwind of anger and justice had not

swept Paris away: that catastrophe which must some day destroy it,

leaving under the leaden heavens only the pestilential quagmire of its

ruins.

Pierre wished to fulfil Abbe Rose's commission immediately. He followed

the Rue des Norvins, on the crest of Montmartre; and, reaching the Rue

des Saules, descended by its steep slope, between mossy walls, to the

other side of Paris. The three francs which he was holding in his

cassock's pocket, filled him at once with gentle emotion and covert anger

against the futility of charity. But as he gradually descended by the

sharp declivities and interminable storeys of steps, the mournful nooks

of misery which he espied took possession of him, and infinite pity wrung

his heart. A whole new district was here being built alongside the broad

thoroughfares opened since the great works of the Sacred Heart had begun.

Lofty middle-class houses were already rising among ripped-up gardens and

plots of vacant land, still edged with palings. And these houses with

their substantial frontages, all new and white, lent a yet more sombre

and leprous aspect to such of the old shaky buildings as remained, the

low pot-houses with blood-coloured walls, the _cites_ of workmen's

dwellings, those abodes of suffering with black, soiled buildings in

which human cattle were piled. Under the low-hanging sky that day, the

pavement, dented by heavily-laden carts, was covered with mud; the thaw

soaked the walls with an icy dampness, whilst all the filth and

destitution brought terrible sadness to the heart.

After going as far as the Rue Marcadet, Pierre retraced his steps; and in

the Rue des Saules, certain that he was not mistaken, he entered the

courtyard of a kind of barracks or hospital, encompassed by three

irregular buildings. This court was a quagmire, where filth must have

accumulated during the two months of terrible frost; and now all was

melting, and an abominable stench arose. The buildings were half falling,

the gaping vestibules looked like cellar holes, strips of paper streaked

the cracked and filthy window-panes, and vile rags hung about like flags

of death. Inside a shanty which served as the door-keeper's abode Pierre

only saw an infirm man rolled up in a tattered strip of what had once

been a horse-cloth.

"You have an old workman named Laveuve here," said the priest. "Which

staircase is it, which floor?"

The man did not answer, but opened his anxious eyes, like a scared idiot.

The door-keeper, no doubt, was in the neighbourhood. For a moment the

priest waited; then seeing a little girl on the other side of the

courtyard, he risked himself, crossed the quagmire on tip-toe, and asked:

"Do you know an old workman named Laveuve in the house, my child?"

The little girl, who only had a ragged gown of pink cotton stuff about

her meagre figure, stood there shivering, her hands covered with

chilblains. She raised her delicate face, which looked pretty though

nipped by the cold: "Laveuve," said she, "no, don't know, don't know."

And with the unconscious gesture of a beggar child she put out one of her

poor, numbed and disfigured hands. Then, when the priest had given her a

little bit of silver, she began to prance through the mud like a joyful

goat, singing the while in a shrill voice: "Don't know, don't know."

Pierre decided to follow her. She vanished into one of the gaping

vestibules, and, in her rear, he climbed a dark and fetid staircase,

whose steps were half-broken and so slippery, on account of the vegetable

parings strewn over them, that he had to avail himself of the greasy rope

by which the inmates hoisted themselves upwards. But every door was

closed; he vainly knocked at several of them, and only elicited, at the

last, a stifled growl, as though some despairing animal were confined

within. Returning to the yard, he hesitated, then made his way to another

staircase, where he was deafened by piercing cries, as of a child who is

being butchered. He climbed on hearing this noise and at last found

himself in front of an open room where an infant, who had been left

alone, tied in his little chair, in order that he might not fall, was

howling and howling without drawing breath. Then Pierre went down again,

upset, frozen by the sight of so much destitution and abandonment.

But a woman was coming in, carrying three potatoes in her apron, and on

being questioned by him she gazed distrustfully at his cassock. "Laveuve,

Laveuve? I can't say," she replied. "If the door-keeper were there, she

might be able to tell you. There are five staircases, you see, and we

don't all know each other. Besides, there are so many changes. Still try

over there; at the far end."

The staircase at the back of the yard was yet more abominable than the

others, its steps warped, its walls slimy, as if soaked with the sweat of

anguish. At each successive floor the drain-sinks exhaled a pestilential

stench, whilst from every lodging came moans, or a noise of quarrelling,

or some frightful sign of misery. A door swung open, and a man appeared

dragging a woman by the hair whilst three youngsters sobbed aloud. On the

next floor, Pierre caught a glimpse of a room where a young girl in her

teens, racked by coughing, was hastily carrying an infant to and fro to

quiet it, in despair that all the milk of her breast should be exhausted.

Then, in an adjoining lodging, came the poignant spectacle of three

beings, half clad in shreds, apparently sexless and ageless, who, amidst

the dire bareness of their room, were gluttonously eating from the same

earthen pan some pottage which even dogs would have refused. They barely

raised their heads to growl, and did not answer Pierre's questions.

He was about to go down again, when right atop of the stairs, at the

entry of a passage, it occurred to him to make a last try by knocking at

the door. It was opened by a woman whose uncombed hair was already

getting grey, though she could not be more than forty; while her pale

lips, and dim eyes set in a yellow countenance, expressed utter

lassitude, the shrinking, the constant dread of one whom wretchedness has

pitilessly assailed. The sight of Pierre's cassock disturbed her, and she

stammered anxiously: "Come in, come in, Monsieur l'Abbe."

However, a man whom Pierre had not at first seen--a workman also of some

forty years, tall, thin and bald, with scanty moustache and beard of a

washed-out reddish hue--made an angry gesture--a threat as it were--to

turn the priest out of doors. But he calmed himself, sat down near a

rickety table and pretended to turn his back. And as there was also a

child present--a fair-haired girl, eleven or twelve years old, with a

long and gentle face and that intelligent and somewhat aged expression

which great misery imparts to children--he called her to him, and held

her between his knees, doubtless to keep her away from the man in the

cassock.

Pierre--whose heart was oppressed by his reception, and who realised the

utter destitution of this family by the sight of the bare, fireless room,

and the distressed mournfulness of its three inmates--decided all the

same to repeat his question: "Madame, do you know an old workman named

Laveuve in the house?"

The woman--who now trembled at having admitted him, since it seemed to

displease her man--timidly tried to arrange matters. "Laveuve, Laveuve?

no, I don't. But Salvat, you hear? Do you know a Laveuve here?"

Salvat merely shrugged his shoulders; but the little girl could not keep

her tongue still: "I say, mamma Theodore, it's p'raps the Philosopher."

"A former house-painter," continued Pierre, "an old man who is ill and

past work."

Madame Theodore was at once enlightened. "In that case it's him, it's

him. We call him the Philosopher, a nickname folks have given him in the

neighbourhood. But there's nothing to prevent his real name from being

Laveuve."

With one of his fists raised towards the ceiling, Salvat seemed to be

protesting against the abomination of a world and a Providence that

allowed old toilers to die of hunger just like broken-down beasts.

However, he did not speak, but relapsed into the savage, heavy silence,

the bitter meditation in which he had been plunged when the priest

arrived. He was a journeyman engineer, and gazed obstinately at the table

where lay his little leather tool-bag, bulging with something it

contained--something, perhaps, which he had to take back to a work-shop.

He might have been thinking of a long, enforced spell of idleness, of a

vain search for any kind of work during the two previous months of that

terrible winter. Or perhaps it was the coming bloody reprisals of the

starvelings that occupied the fiery reverie which set his large, strange,

vague blue eyes aglow. All at once he noticed that his daughter had taken

up the tool-bag and was trying to open it to see what it might contain.

At this he quivered and at last spoke, his voice kindly, yet bitter with

sudden emotion, which made him turn pale. "Celine, you must leave that

alone. I forbade you to touch my tools," said he; then taking the bag, he

deposited it with great precaution against the wall behind him.

"And so, madame," asked Pierre, "this man Laveuve lives on this floor?"

Madame Theodore directed a timid, questioning glance at Salvat. She was

not in favour of hustling priests when they took the trouble to call, for

at times there was a little money to be got from them. And when she

realised that Salvat, who had once more relapsed into his black reverie,

left her free to act as she pleased, she at once tendered her services.

"If Monsieur l'Abbe is agreeable, I will conduct him. It's just at the

end of the passage. But one must know the way, for there are still some

steps to climb."

Celine, finding a pastime in this visit, escaped from her father's knees

and likewise accompanied the priest. And Salvat remained alone in that

den of poverty and suffering, injustice and anger, without a fire,

without bread, haunted by his burning dream, his eyes again fixed upon

his bag, as if there, among his tools, he possessed the wherewithal to

heal the ailing world.

It indeed proved necessary to climb a few more steps; and then, following

Madame Theodore and Celine, Pierre found himself in a kind of narrow

garret under the roof, a loft a few yards square, where one could not

stand erect. There was no window, only a skylight, and as the snow still

covered it one had to leave the door wide open in order that one might

see. And the thaw was entering the place, the melting snow was falling

drop by drop, and coming over the tiled floor. After long weeks of

intense cold, dark dampness rained quivering over all. And there, lacking

even a chair, even a plank, Laveuve lay in a corner on a little pile of

filthy rags spread upon the bare tiles; he looked like some animal dying

on a dung-heap.

"There!" said Celine in her sing-song voice, "there he is, that's the