queen might have coveted; cheap china plates, cracked or chipped, with
fragments of a past meal, and nickel forks--the plate of the Paris
poor; a basket full of potatoes and dirty linen, with a smart gauze
cap on the top; a rickety wardrobe, with a glass door, open and empty,
and on the shelves sundry pawn-tickets,--this was the medley of
things, dismal or pleasing, abject and handsome, that fell on his eye.

These relics of splendor among the potsherds, these household
belongings--so appropriate to the bohemian existence of the girl who
knelt stricken in her unbuttoned garments, like a horse dying in
harness under the broken shafts entangled in the reins--did the whole
strange scene suggest any thoughts to the priest? Did he say to
himself that this erring creature must at least be disinterested to
live in such poverty when her lover was young and rich? Did he ascribe
the disorder of the room to the disorder of her life? Did he feel pity
or terror? Was his charity moved?

To see him, his arms folded, his brow dark, his lips set, his eye
harsh, any one must have supposed him absorbed in morose feelings of
hatred, considerations that jostled each other, sinister schemes. He
was certainly insensible to the soft roundness of a bosom almost
crushed under the weight of the bowed shoulders, and to the beautiful
modeling of the crouching Venus that was visible under the black
petticoat, so closely was the dying girl curled up. The drooping head
which, seen from behind, showed the white, slender, flexible neck and
the fine shoulders of a well-developed figure, did not appeal to him.
He did not raise Esther, he did not seem to hear the agonizing gasps
which showed that she was returning to life; a fearful sob and a
terrifying glance from the girl were needed before he condescended to
lift her, and he carried her to the bed with an ease that revealed