However, the priest made his way out of the _salons_, half stifling amidst the throng of lady-purchasers who were making quite a triumph of the bazaar.

And yonder, in the depths of the gloom, he could picture Salvat still running and running on; while the corpse of Laveuve seemed to him like a buffet of atrocious irony dealt to noisy and delusive charity.
II.

SPIRIT AND FLESH How delightful was the quietude of the little ground-floor overlooking a strip of garden in the Rue Cortot, where good Abbe Rose resided! Hereabouts there was not even a rumble of wheels, or an echo of the panting breath of Paris, which one heard on the other side of the height of Montmartre.

The deep silence and sleepy peacefulness were suggestive of some distant provincial town.
Seven o'clock had struck, the dusk had gathered slowly, and Pierre was in the humble dining-room, waiting for the _femme-de-menage_ to place the soup upon the table.

Abbe Rose, anxious at having seen so little of him for a month past, had written, asking him to come to dinner, in order that they might have a quiet chat concerning their affairs.