“And microbes still farther inside!”

In a corner of this dirty little house and its litter of old rubbish, its dusty debris of last year and the relics of so many summers gone by, among the furniture and household gear, something is moving.  It is an old simpleton with a long bald neck, pink and rough, making you think of a fowl’s neck which has prematurely molted through disease.  His profile is that of a hen, too—­no chin and a long nose.  A gray overlay of beard felts his receded cheek, and you see his heavy eyelids, rounded and horny, move up and down like shutters on the dull beads of his eyes.

Barque has already noticed him:  “Watch him—­he’s a treasure-seeker.  He says there’s one somewhere in this hovel that he’s stepfather to.  You’ll see him directly go on all-fours and push his old phizog in every corner there is.  Tiens, watch him.”

With the aid of his stick, the old man proceeded to take methodical soundings.  He tapped along the foot of the walls and on the floor-tiles..  He was hustled by the coming and going of the occupants of the house, by callers, and by the swing of Palmyra’s broom; but she let him alone and said nothing, thinking to herself, no doubt, that the exploitation of the national calamity is a more profitable treasure than problematical caskets.

Two gossips are standing in a recess and exchanging confidences in low voices, hard by an old map of Russia that is peopled with flies.  “Oui, but it’s with the Picon bitters that you’ve got to be careful.  If you haven’t got a light touch, you can’t get your sixteen glasses out of a bottle, and so you lose too much profit.  I don’t say but what one’s all right in one’s purse, even so, but one doesn’t make enough.  To guard against that, the retailers ought to agree among themselves, but the understanding’s so difficult to bring off, even when it’s in the general interest.”

Outside there is torrid sunshine, riddled with flies.  The little beasts, quite scarce but a few days ago, multiply everywhere the murmur of their minute and innumerable engines.  I go out in the company of Lamuse; we are going for a saunter.  One can be at peace today—­it is complete rest, by reason of the overnight march.  We might sleep, but it suits us much better to use the rest for an extensive promenade.  To-morrow, the exercise and fatigues will get us again.  There are some, less lucky than we, who are already caught in the cogwheels of fatigue.  To Lamuse, who invites him to come and stroll with us, Corvisart replies, screwing up the little round nose that is laid flatly on his oblong face like a cork, “Can’t—­I’m on manure!” He points to the shovel and broom by whose help he is performing his task of scavenger and night-soil man.

We walk languidly.  The afternoon lies heavy on the drowsy land and on stomachs richly provided and embellished with food.  The remarks we exchange are infrequent.

Over there, we hear noises.  Barque has fallen a victim to a menagerie of housewives; and the scene is pointed by a pale little girl, her hair tied behind in a pencil of tow and her mouth embroidered with fever spots, and by women who are busy with some unsavory job of washing in the meager shade before their doors.