At this distance of time, I do not think it would be possible for me to describe accurately all the windings of the corridor which led to the abbé's door. I remember that the first part was damp and low, and after it I used to mount a crazy stone staircase, and at the top passed through a passage that opened on one side upon a narrow court; then there was a little wicket of iron, which, when it turned, tinkled a bell. Sometimes the abbé would hear the bell, and open his door down at the end of the corridor; and sometimes a lodger, who occupied a room looking into the last-mentioned court, would draw, slyly, a corner of his curtain, and peep out, to see who was passing. Sometimes I would loiter myself to look down upon the lower windows in the court, or to glance up at story resting above story, and at the peaked roof, and dot of a loop-hole at the top.
A single small door opened into the court, and occasionally an old woman, or bustling, shabbily-dressed man would shuffle across the pavement; the faces at the windows seemed altogether sordid and every-day faces, so that I came to regard the quarters of the abbé, notwithstanding the quaint-fashioned windows and dim stairway, and suspicious quiet, a very matter of fact, and so, very uninteresting neighborhood.
As the abbé and myself passed out sometimes together through the open-sided corridor, I would point into the court, and ask who lived in the little room at the top.
"Ah, mon cher, I do not know," the abbé would say.
Or, "who lives in the corner, with the queer narrow window and the striped curtain?"
"I cannot tell you, mon cher."
Or, "whose is the little window with so many broken panes, and an old placard pinned against the frame?"
"Ah, who knows! perhaps a chiffonier, or a shopman, or perhaps—" and the abbé lifted his finger, and shook his head expressively, and continued,
"It is a strange world we live in, mon ami."
What could the abbé mean? I looked up at the window again; it was small, and the panes were set in rough metal casing; it was high up on the fourth or fifth floor. I could see nothing through but the dirty yellow placard.