LENTEN LOVES One evening in Lent Rodolphe returned home early with the idea of working.

But scarcely had he sat down at his table and dipped his pen in the ink than he was disturbed by a singular noise.

Putting his ear to the treacherous partition that separated him from the next room, he listened, and plainly distinguished a dialogue broken by the sound of kisses and other amourous interruptions.
"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, glancing at his clock, "it is still early, and my neighbor is a Juliet who usually keeps her Romeo till long after the lark has sung.

I cannot work tonight." And taking his hat he went out.

Handing in his key at the porter's lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant.
The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she could open the latch.
"In point of fact," though Rodolphe, "there are times when porters grow human again." Passing through the door he found in its recess a sapper and a cook exchanging the luck-penny of love.
"Hang it," said Rodolphe, alluding to the warrior and his robust companion, "here are heretics who scarcely think that we are in Lent." And he set out for the abode of one of his friends who lived in the neighborhood.
"If Marcel is at home," he said to himself, "we will pass the evening in abusing Colline.