silence and absolute tranquillity.  All those persons who, so far, have looked at the rooms you are now considering, have listened to the reasons and the entreaties of a despairing father.  It was indifferent to them whether they lived in one house or another of a quarter so deserted that plenty of lodgings can be had for a low price.  But I see in you a fixed determination, and I beg you, monsieur, not to deceive me.  Do you really desire a quiet life?  If not, I shall be forced to move and go beyond the barrier, and the removal may cost me my daughter’s life.”

If the man could have wept, the tears would have covered his cheeks while he spoke; as it was, they were, to use an expression now become vulgar, “in his voice.”  He covered his forehead with his hand, which was nothing but bones and muscle.

“What is your daughter’s illness?” asked Godefroid, in a persuasive and sympathetic voice.

“A terrible disease to which physicians give various names, but it has, in truth, no name.  My fortune is lost,” he added, with one of those despairing gestures made only by the wretched.  “The little money that I had,—­for in 1830 I was cast from a high position,—­in fact, all that I possessed, was soon used by on my daughter’s illness; her mother, too, was ruined by it, and finally her husband.  To-day the pension I receive from the government barely suffices for the actual necessities of my poor, dear, saintly child.  The faculty of tears has left me; I have suffered tortures.  Monsieur, I must be granite not to have died.  But no, God had kept alive the father that the child might have a nurse, a providence.  Her poor mother died of the strain.  Ah! you have come, young man, at a moment when the old tree that never yet has bent feels the axe—­the axe of poverty, sharpened by sorrow—­at his roots.  Yes, here am I, who never complain, talking to you of this illness so as to prevent you from coming to the house; or, if you still persist, to implore you not to trouble our peace.  Monsieur, at this moment my daughter barks like a dog, day and night.”

“Is she insane?” asked Godefroid.

“Her mind is sound; she is a saint,” replied the old man.  “You will presently think I am mad when I tell you all.  Monsieur, my only child, my daughter was born of a mother in excellent health.  I never in my life loved but one woman, the one I married.  I married the daughter of one of the bravest colonels of the Imperial guard, Tarlowski, a Pole, formerly on the staff of the Emperor.  The functions that I exercised in my high position demanded the utmost purity of life and morals; but I have never had room in my heart for many feelings, and I faithfully loved my wife, who deserved such love.  I am a father in like manner as I was a husband, and that is telling you all in one word.  My daughter never left her mother; no child has ever lived more chastely, more truly a Christian life than my dear daughter.  She was born more than pretty, she was born most beautiful; and her husband, a young man of whose morals I was absolutely sure,—­he was the son of a friend of mine, the judge of one of the Royal courts,—­did not in any way contribute to my daughter’s illness.”