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Updated: June 25, 2025
And the thaw was entering the place, the melting snow was falling drop by drop, and coming over the tiled floor. After long weeks of intense cold, dark dampness rained quivering over all. And there, lacking even a chair, even a plank, Laveuve lay in a corner on a little pile of filthy rags spread upon the bare tiles; he looked like some animal dying on a dung-heap.
"Celine, you must leave that alone. I forbade you to touch my tools," said he; then taking the bag, he deposited it with great precaution against the wall behind him. "And so, madame," asked Pierre, "this man Laveuve lives on this floor?" Madame Theodore directed a timid, questioning glance at Salvat.
"Celine, you must leave that alone. I forbade you to touch my tools," said he; then taking the bag, he deposited it with great precaution against the wall behind him. "And so, madame," asked Pierre, "this man Laveuve lives on this floor?" Madame Theodore directed a timid, questioning glance at Salvat.
"You have an old workman named Laveuve here," said the priest. "Which staircase is it, which floor?" The man did not answer, but opened his anxious eyes, like a scared idiot. The door-keeper, no doubt, was in the neighbourhood.
She raised her delicate face, which looked pretty though nipped by the cold: "Laveuve," said she, "no, don't know, don't know." And with the unconscious gesture of a beggar child she put out one of her poor, numbed and disfigured hands.
So he did not hesitate, but began to follow the others in a prudent way. Fresh perturbation came upon him when first Salvat and then Guillaume suddenly turned into the Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. What destiny was thus bringing him back to that street whither a little time previously he had wished to return in feverish haste, and whence only the death of Laveuve had kept him?
And behind Laveuve there appeared the whole army of misery, the whole multitude of the disinherited and the poor, who agonised and asked for justice whilst the Chamber, sitting in all pomp, grew furiously impassioned over the question as to whom the nation should belong to, as to who should devour it.
"You will go after your mass, won't you? His name is Laveuve, he lives in the Rue des Saules in a house with a courtyard, just before reaching the Rue Marcadet. You are sure to find it. And if you want to be very kind you will tell me of your visit this evening at five o'clock, at the Madeleine, where I am going to hear Monseigneur Martha's address. He has been so good to me!
For a moment the priest waited; then seeing a little girl on the other side of the courtyard, he risked himself, crossed the quagmire on tip-toe, and asked: "Do you know an old workman named Laveuve in the house, my child?" The little girl, who only had a ragged gown of pink cotton stuff about her meagre figure, stood there shivering, her hands covered with chilblains.
"A former house-painter," continued Pierre, "an old man who is ill and past work." Madame Theodore was at once enlightened. "In that case it's him, it's him. We call him the Philosopher, a nickname folks have given him in the neighbourhood. But there's nothing to prevent his real name from being Laveuve."
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