René was seated by Rosalie's side, and let the epigram of the terrible _bourgeoise_ pass unnoticed, taking no part either in the rest of the conversation, which Emilie wisely led round to cookery topics. Madame Offarel was almost as keen on this subject as she was on that of her feline pets. Not content with having recipes of her own for all kinds of dishes, such as _coulis d'écrevisses_, her triumph, and _canard sauce Offarel_, as she had proudly named it, she also kept a list of addresses where specialities might be obtained. Treating Paris like Robinson Crusoe treated his island, she would, from time to time, start out on a foraging expedition to the most remote quarters of the capital, going to some particular shop for her coffee and to another for her _pâtes d'Italie._ She knew the exact date on which a certain man received his consignment of Bologna sausages, and when another got his Spanish olives in. The slightest incidents of these excursions were magnified by her into events. Sometimes she would go on foot, and then her comments on the improvements she had noticed, on the increase in the traffic, and on the superiority of the air in the Rue de Bagneux were inexhaustible. At other times she would go by omnibus, and then her fellow-passengers formed the subject of her remarks. She had met a very nice woman who was very fat, or a young man who was very impertinent; the conductor had recognised her and said good morning; the 'bus had nearly been upset three times; an old gentleman--'decorated'--had had some trouble in alighting. 'I really thought he would fall, poor, dear old man!' The insignificant and superfluous details upon which it pleased the poor woman's simple mind to dilate generally amused René, for the _bourgeoise_ sometimes hit upon some curious figures of speech in her flow of words. She would say, for instance, when speaking of a fellow-passenger who was paying attentions to a cook laden with provisions, 'Some people like their pockets greasy,' or of two persons quarrelling, 'They fought like Darnajats'--a mysterious expression which she had always refused to translate. But that evening there was too pronounced a contrast between the state of romantic excitement into which his interview with Suzanne had thrown the poet and the meanness of the surroundings in which he had been born. He did not stop to think that similar contrasts are to be found in every form of life, and that the substrata of the fashionable world are composed of mean rivalries, of disgusting attempts to keep up illusory appearances, and of compromises of conscience compared with which the narrow-mindedness of the middle classes is a proof of the most delightful simplicity.