It annoyed her that he spoke like General Lariviere.  She did not say that she had not seen Choulette since autumn, and that he neglected her with the capriciousness of a man not in society.

“He has wit,” she said, “fantasy, and an original temperament.  He pleases me.”

And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied: 

“I haven’t a taste, I have tastes.  You do not disapprove of them all, I suppose.”

He replied that he did not criticise her.  He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome in respectable houses.

She exclaimed: 

“Not welcome in respectable houses—­Choulette?  Don’t you know that he goes every year for a month to the Marquise de Rieu?  Yes, to the Marquise de Rieu, the Catholic, the royalist.  But since Choulette interests you, listen to his latest adventure.  Paul Vence related it to me.  I understand it better in this street, where there are shirts and flowerpots at the windows.

“This winter, one night when it was raining, Choulette went into a public-house in a street the name of which I have forgotten, but which must resemble this one, and met there an unfortunate girl whom the waiters would not have noticed, and whom he liked for her humility.  Her name was Maria.  The name was not hers.  She found it nailed on her door at the top of the stairway where she went to lodge.  Choulette was touched by this perfection of poverty and infamy.  He called her his sister, and kissed her hands.  Since then he has not quitted her a moment.  He takes her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the rich students read their reviews.  He says sweet things to her.  He weeps, she weeps.  They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight.  He loves her.  He calls her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation.  She was barefooted; he gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might make stockings.  And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, with enormous nails.  He teaches her verses that are easy to understand.  He is afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame where she lives in perfect simplicity and admirable destitution.”

Le Menil shrugged his shoulders.

“But that Choulette is crazy, and Paul Vence has no right to tell you such stories.  I am not austere, assuredly; but there are immoralities that disgust me.”  They were walking at random.  She fell into a dream.

“Yes, morality, I know—­duty!  But duty—­it takes the devil to discover it.  I can assure you that I do not know where duty is.  It’s like a young lady’s turtle at Joinville.  We spent all the evening looking for it under the furniture, and when we had found it, we went to bed.”

He thought there was some truth in what she said.  He would think about it when alone.