Long, narrow shoes, tiny ridiculous shoes—some of them with loose, dangling rosettes, others showing a bare place where the rosette or a jewel had once been fastened. High heels, and the soles scarcely thicker than a sheet of paper. Sometimes a rent in the satin, and the maker’s name stamped in dim gilt letters. Shoes, no doubt, that long ago stepped daring quadrilles at the _bal masqué_ of the Opera; the shoes of Mademoiselle Liane de Luneville, a former blonde and brilliant courtesan; and next to them remnants from Mademoiselle de Luneville’s wardrobe. A white satin dress, sewn with artificial pearls, dismembered silken sleeves, spangled stuffs, daring gauzes, and other extravagances and audacities. Courtesan finery. Sold, no doubt, in the twilight of the _demi-mondaine’s_ career; or seized roughly by the bailiffs when not a shadow of the beauty or glory of Mademoiselle de Luneville remained. Now does a moth fly out of a piece of tapestry I have shaken. Now do I behold a black cat, with lurid yellow eyes, perched motionless upon a pile of draperies in a corner. Now do I perceive gigantic cobwebs overhead. Thus, some life—but life of an eerie nature—in the cellar. “Je ne vous dérange pas, Madame?” “Faîtes donc, faîtes donc,” replies the deep, sepulchral voice of Veuve Mollard. A cracked water-colour landscape signed, ever so faintly, “R. E. F.” Disposed of, perhaps, for a five-franc piece; and to-day the painter either dead, or a shabby, lonely, struggling old fellow? or a rich and distinguished “master”? A sword—used in a duel? A small silver mug—from a god-father? Pink, white and black dominoes: they should have been placed amongst the courtesan’s finery. The _bâton_ of a _chef d’orchestre_, silver-mounted, of ebony. A bunch of tarnished seals; chipped vases and liqueur glasses; a cracked, frameless mirror; a collection of old legal and medical books; a heap of dusty, fantastic draperies of the kind used extensively by the students of the Latin Quarter. Deceptive draperies that once turned a bed into a divan, discreet draperies that hid the scars on the walls—the draperies of Paul and Pierre, of Gaston and René, sons of Henri Mürger, genuine, veritable Bohemians, who, if they lived recklessly and irresponsibly, were nevertheless full of generous impulses, imagination, ideals, but who to-day are become stout, bourgeois, double-chinned inhabitants of such dreary provincial towns as Abbeville and Arras. Thus the past in this cellar; in every nook and corner of this rambling, chaotic cellar, the past. Changes and changes—but not one change for the better. All around me evidence of somebody’s indifference and faithlessness to old possessions. On all sides, symbols of somebody’s downfall and ruin. “Je vous remercie, Madame.” “C’est moi qui vous remercie, Monsieur.” On my way out—on the crooked stone staircase leading upwards to the hole in the wall—I look back.