“I think that Monsieur Choulette is coming.”

He was walking along the quay, limping, with his hat on the back of his head, his beard unkempt, and dragging an old carpet-bag.  He was almost repulsive; yet, in spite of his fifty years of age, he looked young, so clear and lustrous were his eyes, so much ingenuous audacity had been retained in his yellow, hollow face, so vividly did this old man express the eternal adolescence of the poet and artist.  When she saw him, Therese regretted having invited so strange a companion.  He walked along, throwing a hasty glance into every carriage—­a glance which, little by little, became sullen and distrustful.  But when he recognized Madame Martin, he smiled so sweetly and said good-morning to her in so caressing a voice that nothing was left of the ferocious old vagabond walking on the quay, nothing except the old carpet-bag, the handles of which were half broken.

He placed it in the rack with great care, among the elegant bags enveloped with gray cloth, beside which it looked conspicuously sordid.  It was studded with yellow flowers on a blood-colored background.

He was soon perfectly at ease, and complimented Madame Martin on the elegance of her travelling attire.

“Excuse me, ladies,” he added, “I was afraid I should be late.  I went to six o’clock mass at Saint Severin, my parish, in the Virgin Chapel, under those pretty, but absurd columns that point toward heaven though frail as reeds-like us, poor sinners that we are.”

“Ah,” said Madame Martin, “you are pious to-day.”

And she asked him whether he wore the cordon of the order which he was founding.  He assumed a grave and penitent air.

“I am afraid, Madame, that Monsieur Paul Vence has told you many absurd stories about me.  I have heard that he goes about circulating rumors that my ribbon is a bell-rope—­and of what a bell!  I should be pained if anybody believed so wretched a story.  My ribbon, Madame, is a symbolical ribbon.  It is represented by a simple thread, which one wears under one’s clothes after a pauper has touched it, as a sign that poverty is holy, and that it will save the world.  There is nothing good except in poverty; and since I have received the price of Les Blandices, I feel that I am unjust and harsh.  It is a good thing that I have placed in my bag several of these mystic ribbons.”

And, pointing to the horrible carpet-bag: 

“I have also placed in it a host which a bad priest gave to me, the works of Monsieur de Maistre, shirts, and several other things:” 

Madame Martin lifted her eyebrows, a little ill at ease.  But the good Madame Marmet retained her habitual placidity.