"Have you been to the opera?"

"Not yet; but I shall go next year, when I am living at Paris to finish
reading for the bar."

"As I had the honour of putting it to your husband," said the chemist,
"with regard to this poor Yanoda who has run away, you will find
yourself, thanks to his extravagance, in the possession of one of the
most comfortable houses of Yonville. Its greatest convenience for a
doctor is a door giving on the Walk, where one can go in and out unseen.
Moreover, it contains everything that is agreeable in a household--a
laundry, kitchen with offices, sitting-room, fruit-room, and so on. He
was a gay dog, who didn't care what he spent. At the end of the garden,
by the side of the water, he had an arbour built just for the purpose of
drinking beer in summer; and if madame is fond of gardening she will be
able--"

"My wife doesn't care about it," said Charles; "although she has
been advised to take exercise, she prefers always sitting in her room
reading."

"Like me," replied Leon. "And indeed, what is better than to sit by
one's fireside in the evening with a book, while the wind beats against
the window and the lamp is burning?"

"What, indeed?" she said, fixing her large black eyes wide open upon
him.

"One thinks of nothing," he continued; "the hours slip by. Motionless we