I don't hear you coughing.... But if you're ready we'll be on our way."

"Where shall we go?" asked Durtal.

Des Hermies did not answer. They left the rue du Regard, in which Durtal
lived, and went down the rue du Cherche-Midi as far as the Croix-Rouge.

"Let's go on to the place Saint-Sulpice," said Des Hermies, and after a
silence he continued, "Speaking of dust, 'out of which we came and to
which we shall return,' do you know that after we are dead our corpses
are devoured by different kinds of worms according as we are fat or
thin? In fat corpses one species of maggot is found, the rhizophagus,
while thin corpses are patronized only by the phora. The latter is
evidently the aristocrat, the fastidious gourmet which turns up its nose
at a heavy meal of copious breasts and juicy fat bellies. Just think,
there is no perfect equality, even in the manner in which we feed the
worms.

"But this is where we stop."

They had come to where the rue Férou opens into the place Saint-Sulpice.
Durtal looked up and on an unenclosed porch in the flank of the church
of Saint-Sulpice he read the placard, "Tower open to visitors."

"Let's go up," said Des Hermies.

"What for! In this weather?" and Durtal pointed at the yellow sky over
which black clouds, like factory smoke, were racing, so low that the tin
chimneys seemed to penetrate them and crenelate them with little spots
of clarity. "I am not enthusiastic about trying to climb a flight of