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doorway of this printing office.
At that moment an old woman came out of the church.
She saw the man stretched out in the shadow. ‘What are you
doing there, my friend?’ said she.
He answered harshly and angrily: ‘As you see, my good
woman, I am sleeping.’ The good woman, who was well
worthy the name, in fact, was the Marquise de R——
‘On this bench?’ she went on.
‘I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years,’ said
the man; ‘to-day I have a mattress of stone.’
‘You have been a soldier?’
‘Yes, my good woman, a soldier.’
‘Why do you not go to the inn?’
‘Because I have no money.’
‘Alas!’ said Madame de R——, ‘I have only four sous in
my purse.’
‘Give it to me all the same.’
The man took the four sous. Madame de R—— contin-
ued: ‘You cannot obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a
sum. But have you tried? It is impossible for you to pass the
night thus. You are cold and hungry, no doubt. Some one
might have given you a lodging out of charity.’
‘I have knocked at all doors.’
‘Wel l? ’
‘I have been driven away everywhere.’
The ‘good woman’ touched the man’s arm, and pointed
out to him on the other side of the street a small, low house,
which stood beside the Bishop’s palace.
‘You have knocked at all doors?’