This is not all. Every movement that she made was clumsy. She could not take a step without running against something; everything she took into her hands she was sure to let fall; her arms hit against the furniture, and swept off everything that was lying on it. When walking, she stepped on your toes and dug her elbows into your breast; then she excused herself with a harsh and sullen voice, a voice that breathed into your face a tainted, corpse-like odor. As soon as she entered the ante-room there at once arose among us a sort of irritated complaint, which quickly changed into insulting recriminations and ended in growls. The wretched creature was hooted as she crossed the room, rolling along on her short legs, passed on from one to another like a ball, until she reached her bench at the end of the room. And every one pretended to draw away from her, with significant gestures of disgust, and grimaces that were accompanied with a lifting of handkerchiefs. Then, in the empty space instantaneously formed behind the sanitary cordon that isolated her from us, the dismal girl sat leaning against the wall, silent and detested, without a complaint, without revolt, without seeming to understand that all this contempt was meant for her. Although, not to be unlike the others, I sometimes took part in this cruel sport, I could not help feeling a sort of pity for the little Breton. I understood that here was a being predestined to misfortune,--one of those beings who, whatever they may do and wherever they may go, will be eternally repulsed by men, and also by beasts,--for there is a certain height of ugliness, a certain form of infirmity, that the beasts themselves do not tolerate. One day, overcoming my disgust, I approached her, and asked: "What is your name?" "Louise Randon." "I am a Breton ... from Audierne. And you, too, are a Breton, are you not?" Astonished that anyone was willing to speak to her, and fearing some insult or practical joke, she did not answer directly. She buried her thumb in the deep caverns of her nose. I repeated my question. "From what part of Brittany do you come?" Then she looked at me, and, seeing undoubtedly that there was no unkindness in my eyes, she decided to answer: "I am from Saint-Michel-en-Grève, near Lannion." I knew not what further to say to her. Her voice was repulsive to me. It was not a voice; it was something hoarse and broken, like a hiccup,--a sort of gurgle. This voice drove away my pity. However, I went on. "You have relatives living?" "Yes; my father, my mother, two brothers, four sisters. I am the oldest." "And your father? What does he do?" "He is a blacksmith." "You are poor." "My father has three fields, three houses, three threshing-machines...." "Then he is rich?" "Surely he is rich. He cultivates his fields and rents his houses, and goes about the country with his threshing-machines and threshes the peasants' wheat. And my brother shoes the horses." "And your sisters?"