looked about me and shared my thoughts with her. Never very talkative,
she would listen to me. Coming out of the Place de l'Eglise, which
used to affect us so much not long ago, we often used to meet Jean and
Genevieve Trompson, near the sunken post where an old jam pot lies on
the ground. Everybody used to say of these two, "They'll separate,
you'll see; that's what comes of loving each other too much; it was
madness, I always said so." And hearing these things, unfortunately
true, Marie would murmur, with a sort of obstinate gentleness, "Love is
sacred."

Returning, not far from the anachronistic and clandestine Eudo's lair,
we used to hear the coughing parrot. That old bird, worn threadbare,
and of a faded green hue, never ceased to imitate the fits of coughing
which two years before had torn Adolphe Piot's lungs, who died in the
midst of his family under such sad circumstances. Those days we would
return with our ears full of the obstinate clamor of that recording
bird, which had set itself fiercely to immortalize the noise that
passed for a moment through the world, and toss the echoes of an
ancient calamity, of which everybody had ceased to think.

Almost the only people about us are Marthe, my little sister-in-law,
who is six years old, and resembles her sister like a surprising
miniature; my father-in-law, who is gradually annihilating himself; and
Crillon. This last lives always contented in the same shop while time
goes by, like his father and his grandfather, and the cobbler of the
fable, his eternal ancestor. Under his square cap, on the edge of his
glazed niche, he soliloquizes, while he smokes the short and juicy pipe
which joins him in talking and spitting--indeed, he seems to be
answering it. A lonely toiler, his lot is increasingly hard, and
almost worthless. He often comes in to us to do little jobs--mend a