“Thanks for the trig little love, ruled like music-paper, that
    you gave me.  My heart cannot be so straitly measured, it
    requires more latitude—­”

“Her heart!” he laughed, then he continued to read: 

“I understand that it is not your earthly mission to satisfy my heart but you might at least have conceded me a frank comradeship which would have permitted me to leave my sex at home and to come and spend an evening with you now and then.  This, seemingly, so simple, you have rendered impossible.  Farewell forever.  I have only to renew my pact with Solitude, to which I have tried to be unfaithful—­”

“With solitude! and that complaisant and paternal cuckold, her husband!  Well, he is the one most to be pitied now.  Thanks to me, he had evenings of quiet.  I restored his wife, pliant and satisfied.  He profited by my fatigues, that sacristan.  Ah, when I think of it, his sly, hypocritical eyes, when he looked at me, told me a great deal.

“Well, the little romance is over.  It’s a good thing to have your heart on strike.  In my brain I still have a house of ill fame, which sometimes catches fire, but the hired myrmidons will stamp out the blaze in a hurry.

“When I was young and ardent the women laughed at me.  Now that I am old and stale I laugh at them.  That’s more in my character, old fellow,” he said to the cat, which, with ears pricked up, was listening to the soliloquy.  “Truly, Gilles de Rais is a great deal more interesting than Mme. Chantelouve.  Unfortunately, my relations with him are also drawing to a close.  Only a few more pages and the book is done.  Oh, Lord!  Here comes Rateau to knock my house to pieces.”

Sure enough, the concierge entered, made an excuse for being late, took off his vest, and cast a look of defiance at the furniture.  Then he hurled himself at the bed, grappled with the mattress, got a half-Nelson on it, and balancing himself, turning half around, hurled it onto the springs.

Durtal, followed by his cat, went into the other room, but suddenly Rateau ceased wrestling and came and stood before Durtal.

“Monsieur, do you know what has happened?” he blubbered.

“Why, no.”

“My wife has left me.”

“Left you! but she must be over sixty.”

Rateau raised his eyes to heaven.

“And she ran off with another man?”

Rateau, disconsolate, let the feather duster fall from his listless hand.

“The devil!  Then, in spite of her age, your wife had needs which you were unable to satisfy?”

The concierge shook his head and finally succeeded in saying, “It was the other way around.”

“Oh,” said Durtal, considering the old caricature, shrivelled by bad air and “three-six,” “but if she is tired of that sort of thing, why did she run off with a man?”

Rateau made a grimace of pitying contempt, “Oh, he’s impotent.  Good for nothing—­”