"My, the cold is terrible today," said Durtal, "and I should think it
would be no fun up there."

"Oh, he isn't grumbling for himself but for his bells. Take off your
things."

They took off their overcoats and came up close to the stove.

"It isn't what you would call hot in here," said Mme. Carhaix, "but to
thaw this place you would have to keep a fire going night and day."

"Why don't you get a portable stove?"

"Oh, heavens! that would asphyxiate us."

"It wouldn't be very comfortable at any rate," said Des Hermies, "for
there is no chimney. You might get some joints of pipe and run them out
of the window, the way you have fixed this tubing. But, speaking of that
kind of apparatus, Durtal, doesn't it seem to you that those hideous
galvanized iron contraptions perfectly typify our utilitarian epoch?

"Just think, the engineer, offended by any object that hasn't a
sinister or ignoble form, reveals himself entire in this invention. He
tells us, 'You want heat. You shall have heat--and nothing else.'
Anything agreeable to the eye is out of the question. No more snapping,
crackling wood fire, no more gentle, pervasive warmth. The useful
without the fantastic. Ah, the beautiful jets of flame darting out from
a red cave of coals and spurting up over a roaring log."

"But there are lots of stoves where you can see the fire," objected