Livette thought that she must be ill, and rose to go, determined to wait no longer, but as she put out her hand to the door she uttered a cry. A centipede was crawling along the key, as lively as you please. She recoiled, and saw upon the white wall, at about the level of her head, a _tarente_, that seemed to be watching her with its pale-gray eyes. The _tarente_ is inoffensive, but Livette knew nothing of that. It is the Mauritanian _gecko_, which abounds in Provence, a reptile repugnant to the sight, with gray protuberances on the head and back like those upon cantaloupe melons. And then the little fellow, the tiny creature, resembles the crocodile!--Surely, Livette has the fever. "What's the matter, my child?" Monsieur le curé has entered the room. He has a kindly air that comforts the poor child at once. He points to a chair. She sits down and dares not say a word. Where shall she begin? He urges her. "Well, my child?" He closes his eyes, that he may not embarrass her by his glance, which he knows to be searching. He has left his spectacles up-stairs on his great book. He closes his eyes; and with compressed lips, presses his jaws against each other to a sort of rhythm, so that you can see his temples bulge out and subside like a fish's gills. It is a nervous affection. His hands are folded on his waist; he clasps his fingers and plays at making them revolve about one another, mechanically; but he is keenly attentive. Monsieur le curé loves the souls of his fellow-men. He knows that they suffer, that life is infinite, and that they veer about and call to one another in the boundless expanse of space and time, like birds in a storm. He is reflecting. He is a kind-hearted priest. He is imbued with the spirit of the Gospel. He is indulgent. Does he not know that some great saints have been great sinners? He desires to be kind. He knows how to be. What can be the matter?