slight consolation, like that of a poor animal when it no longer feels
itself abused. I was held by an infinite pity for this friend. I knew
that she looked at her trade as an important task, however ungrateful
it was. For a long time she waited thus for the train to the suburb
where she lived.

One evening she asked if she might go with me to the end of the
street.

We came to a great lighted square where there was a large theater. On
one of the pillars of this edifice was a brilliant, gilded poster. It
represented Sarah Bernhardt in the costume of Tosca, I believe. She
wore a stiff rich robe and held a palm in her hand. And I called to
mind the things I had been told of this famous woman: her caprices
that were immediately obeyed, her extravagances, her coffin, her
pride.

I felt the poor little sufferer trembling at my side. She saw
this barbarous idol rise up and throw unconsciously upon her the
splattering flood of her golden ornaments.

And I had a desire to cry out with grief at this meeting face to face
of the two. And I said to myself:

"They are both born of woman. One holds a palm, and the other an old
umbrella so shabby that she does not dare to open it before me.

"The one trails an admiring throng at her feet, and the other tatters
of leather. The one sells her sorrow for the weight of gold and not
a sob comes from her mouth that does not have the clinking sound of