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 abbe'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 abbe 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 abbe, notwithstanding the quaint-fashioned windows and dim stairway, and suspicious quiet, a very matter of fact, and so, very uninteresting neighborhood. As the abbe 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 abbe 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 abbe lifted his finger, and shook his head expressively, and continued, "It is a strange world we live in, _mon ami_." What could the abbe 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. "Is it in the same hotel with you?" said I. "_Ma foi_, I do not know."