was one of those who went about for a whole week before the fifteenth of
August, gazing at the black lamps and their frames, and the scaffoldings.
Nor did his wife complain. At all events, she no longer had that chronic
grumbler prowling around her chair for whole days, with schemes for
gigantic enterprises, combinations that missed fire in advance,
lamentations concerning the past, and a fixed determination not to work
at anything to earn money.

She no longer earned anything herself, poor woman; but she knew so well
how to save, her wonderful economy made up so completely for everything
else, that absolute want, although a near neighbor of such impecuniosity
as theirs, never succeeded in making its way into those three rooms,
which were always neat and clean, or in destroying the carefully mended
garments or the old furniture so well concealed beneath its coverings.

Opposite the Chebes' door, whose copper knob gleamed in bourgeois fashion
upon the landing, were two other and smaller ones.

On the first, a visiting-card, held in place by four nails, according to
the custom in vogue among industrial artists, bore the name of

RISLER
DESIGNER OF PATTERNS.

On the other was a small square of leather, with these words in gilt
letters:

MESDAMES DELOBELLE
BIRDS AND INSECTS FOR ORNAMENT.