She asked: 

“The Arabian Nights-does that amuse you?”

“A great deal,” he replied, tying his cravat.  “I believe as much as I wish in these Arabian princes whose legs become black marble, and in these women of the harem who wander at night in cemeteries.  These tales give me pleasant dreams which make me forget life.  Last night I went to bed in sadness and read the history of the Three Calendars.”

She said, with a little bitterness: 

“You are trying to forget.  I would not consent for anything in the world to lose the memory of a pain which came to me from you.”

They went down together to the street.  She was to take a carriage a little farther on and precede him at her house by a few minutes.

“My husband expects you to breakfast.”

They talked, on the way, of insignificant things, which their love made great and charming.  They arranged their afternoon in advance in order to put into it the infinity of profound joy and of ingenious pleasure.  She consulted him about her gowns.  She could not decide to leave him, happy to walk with him in the streets, which the sun and the gayety of noon filled.  When they reached the Avenue des Ternes they saw before them, on the avenue, shops displaying side by side a magnificent abundance of food.  There were chains of chickens at the caterer’s, and at the fruiterer’s boxes of apricots and peaches, baskets of grapes, piles of pears.  Wagons filled with fruits and flowers bordered the sidewalk.  Under the awning of a restaurant men and women were taking breakfast.  Therese recognized among them, alone, at a small table against a laurel-tree in a box, Choulette lighting his pipe.

Having seen her, he threw superbly a five-franc piece on the table, rose, and bowed.  He was grave; his long frock-coat gave him an air of decency and austerity.

He said he should have liked to call on Madame Martin at Dinard, but he had been detained in the Vendee by the Marquise de Rieu.  However, he had issued a new edition of the Jardin Clos, augmented by the Verger de Sainte-Claire.  He had moved souls which were thought to be insensible, and had made springs come out of rocks.

“So,” he said, “I was, in a fashion, a Moses.”

He fumbled in his pocket and drew from a book a letter, worn and spotted.

“This is what Madame Raymond, the Academician’s wife, writes me.  I publish what she says, because it is creditable to her.”

And, unfolding the thin leaves, he read: 

“I have made your book known to my husband, who exclaimed:  ’It is pure spiritualism.  Here is a closed garden, which on the side of the lilies and white roses has, I imagine, a small gate opening on the road to the Academie.’”

Choulette relished these phrases, mingled in his mouth with the perfume of whiskey, and replaced carefully the letter in its book.

Madame Martin congratulated the poet on being Madame Raymond’s candidate.