"As full as an egg, the grandfather!" he said.
Turning to the left, Papa Labesse toiled up upon the slope of the fortifications, stumbled on for a little, and, finally, as his exhaustion gained upon him, flung himself, face down, upon the grass. He had passed the need of sleep long since, but he lay quite motionless for a long time, with his chin on his hands. Directly before him, seen more clearly from the elevation upon which he lay, was the dingy suburb of Clichy, and, to the left, its still dingier neighbor, Levallois-Perret, studded, both of them, with gaunt sheds of blackened wood, and ghastly factories and storehouses of cheap brick, their endless windows, in close-set rows, giving them the appearance of rusted waffle-irons, and their tall chimneys slabbering slow coils of smoke. In the immediate foreground, a man with a scythe was lazily cutting the long grass on the outward slope of the fortifications.
Presently Papa Labesse began to talk to himself. His eyes were very bright, and as he spoke they jumped nimbly from shed to shed, from factory to factory, of the dispiriting scene before him.
"But what are those?" he began, scowling at two high chimneys standing side by side. "Tiens! Sainte Clotilde! But the evening is clear then, par exemple, that one sees so far and so well. It is all so wonderful—but I have never understood it till now. Ah! Saint Etienne-du-Mont! That I know, since the dome of the Panthéon is quite near. Sapristi! What is that? L'amour, Papa Labesse, l'amour,—that which, finally, thou canst never understand, poor Papa Labesse! Tiens! Notre Dame! Ah, ça! A woman like herself, what?—like Paris that sings of love! My pigeon!"
So, for an hour, the thin stream of jumbled phrases slipped from his dry lips. He talked softly,—no one could have heard him at two paces,—but the babble never ceased.
At seven o'clock a woman carrying a basket appeared upon the fortifications from the direction of the gate, and, pausing at the top of the slope, looked down upon the mower.
"Hé! Allô—labago! Bom-biste!" she cried. The man turned. There was no such thing as not being able to hear La Trompette.
And suddenly Papa Labesse held his peace.