The street was inclement. The quays, swept by a sharp and humid wind, stood out gloomily under their closed boxes, truly an unfavorable sight to those restless plunderers of knowledge. What becomes of the disconsolate vagabonds, amateurs of printed foolishness, in those days of enforced idleness? He perceived one, with sad eyes and weary movements, who was examining the sky, holding out against the storm and waiting for a lull. Entragues knew him: he was an old man of letters who spent his days here. No book was unknown to him, he dipped into all of them, saluted them with a smile, but purchased only those which concerned the Auvergne, his native country. In a vast garret he had fifteen thousand books of this kind and did not despair of doubling the number. Entragues wished to lead him away from these desolate banks; he resisted, like a lover who has decided to sleep across the bolted door of his mistress. This constancy pleased Entragues. "Just come as far as the rue de Richelieu. There is a big Moorish room where you can also find some books, and you are in shelter." "Yes, it is all right, but you can't take them with you." Entragues left him at this word whose bitterness he understood, for he too belonged to those who can only read with pleasure the books that one owns. Books, women, pictures, horses, statues and the rest, the very grass and trees and everything one enjoys can only be half-enjoyed if it is not owned. That explains the little success of museums, usually deserted except on rainy Sundays; a great indifference or a great detachment is necessary to bestow enthusiastic feelings on the contemplation of a picture which an imbecile glance will pollute the moment after. Rue de Richelieu has a special atmosphere which can only be breathed there. As soon as one enters, a little chill strikes the hands and feet, and once installed in the chair and in a numbered place, one feels the cruel feverish embraces of books. Entragues could not remain seated. He walked along the aisle, examining the heads at his right and the books at his left. Evidently, all those heads believed in knowledge and came here to imbibe books, in which--as one knows--all knowledge is contained. Pliny, too, believed in knowledge, and Paracelsus, and Erasmus, and Salmasius, and where is their knowledge, Villon! It is where your verses shall never go, poor scholar! You knew, and among other things you knew that who-ever dies, "dies in grief." Work, work and some day knowledge, like gall, will rend your heart. Work, if it is necessary to live; that is an excuse, although, according to a certain preface, one must not attach too much value to one's daily bread. But," continued Entragues, "must humanity grow weary intentionally so that there may be amateurs of labor!" "What, you, Oury? I thought you were in the provinces." "I made for myself," answered Oury, "a corner of the provinces in Paris, and as you see I am alive, or at least I appear to be so."