stage with a worse grace. Not to go further back, which would be judged

too curious, there are subsequently many moving and decisive accidents in

the lives of all, which would make as logical a period as this of birth.

And here, for instance, Doctor Desprez, a man past forty, who had made

what is called a failure in life, and was moreover married, found himself

at a new point of departure when he opened the door of the loft above

Tentaillon's stable.

It was a large place, lighted only by a single candle set upon the floor.

The mountebank lay on his back upon a pallet; a large man, with a

Quixotic nose inflamed with drinking. Madame Tentaillon stooped over

him, applying a hot water and mustard embrocation to his feet; and on a

chair close by sat a little fellow of eleven or twelve, with his feet

dangling. These three were the only occupants, except the shadows. But

the shadows were a company in themselves; the extent of the room

exaggerated them to a gigantic size, and from the low position of the

candle the light struck upwards and produced deformed foreshortenings.

The mountebank's profile was enlarged upon the wall in caricature, and it

was strange to see his nose shorten and lengthen as the flame was blown

about by draughts. As for Madame Tentaillon, her shadow was no more than

a gross hump of shoulders, with now and again a hemisphere of head. The

chair legs were spindled out as long as stilts, and the boy set perched

atop of them, like a cloud, in the corner of the roof.

It was the boy who took the Doctor's fancy. He had a great arched skull,

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