fantastic juxtaposition of seven letters; seven! the most significant
of all the cabalistic numbers. And he died at five-and-thirty, so his
life extended over seven lustres.

Marcas! Does it not hint of some precious object that is broken with a
fall, with or without a crash?



I had finished studying the law in Paris in 1836. I lived at that time
in the Rue Corneille in a house where none but students came to lodge,
one of those large houses where there is a winding staircase quite at
the back lighted below from the street, higher up by borrowed lights,
and at the top by a skylight. There were forty furnished rooms
--furnished as students' rooms are! What does youth demand more than
was here supplied? A bed, a few chairs, a chest of drawers, a
looking-glass, and a table. As soon as the sky is blue the student
opens his window.

But in this street there are no fair neighbors to flirt with. In front
is the Odeon, long since closed, presenting a wall that is beginning
to go black, its tiny gallery windows and its vast expanse of slate
roof. I was not rich enough to have a good room; I was not even rich
enough to have a room to myself. Juste and I shared a double-bedded
room on the fifth floor.

On our side of the landing there were but two rooms--ours and a
smaller one, occupied by Z. Marcas, our neighbor. For six months Juste
and I remained in perfect ignorance of the fact. The old woman who
managed the house had indeed told us that the room was inhabited, but