"'Oh, there were plenty of gibbets,' answered Adolphe, giving me a look of which I did not catch the meaning. 'The good city was not lacking in gibbets, gallows, or pillories. And even here...' "Again he gave me an odd look, and I saw that we had arrived at the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. 'Do you want to cross the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville?' he went on. "'Of course I'll cross it, if that's the way you want to go,' I said. "'Have you often crossed it?' he said. "'Thousands of times.' "'And has nothing uncommon happened? Have you experienced no odd feelings? Have you remembered nothing?' "'Nothing at all.' "'Are there any spots in Paris that you haven't been able to cross?' "His look was insistent. It seemed to speak to me, to bid me reflect. Then I recalled several inexplicable aversions to places I had felt. More than once, on my way to Odéon Street, on finding myself in front of the Institute, I had turned into Mazarine Street. I had no sooner set foot in it than I had turned right about face and gone round another way. I had been vaguely aware of these changes of route and had put them down to absent-mindedness. But the more I think of it the less I believe that it was anything of the kind. In fact, I have found myself at that point more than twenty times; and more than twenty times I have retraced my steps. Never--never have I walked along that part of Mazarine Street which begins at the Institute and continues to the corner of Guénégaud Street and to the foot of the Pont-Neuf. Never! At the same time when I have gone along Mazarine Street on my way to the quays, I have stopped at Guénégaud Street and gone down it with a sense of pleasure. "I told Adolphe all this; and he said, 'Are there any other places from which you shrink?' "Then I remembered on reflection that I had never crossed the Pont-Neuf or the Petit-Pont; and that there is, at the corner of Vielle-du-Temple Street, a house with barred windows from which I have always recoiled. "'And why do you shrink from these places and from this house in Vielle-du-Temple Street?' he said. "Then I remembered exactly why; and the reason is the most natural in the world. I had thought I had no reason; but evidently I had, for it was because of the paving-stones. "'Because of the paving-stones?' he said in a tone of surprise. "'Yes: because the paving-stones in those streets are red. I don't mind red roofs or red-brick walls, but red paving-stones I cannot stand!' "'And the soil of this Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville? Isn't it red?' said Adolphe, leaning over me with the air of a doctor listening to the beating of a patient's heart. "'Do you think I'm colour-blind?' "'Don't you know that this was the Place de Grève?'