A sparrow, lacking a leg, which had been replaced by a match, hopped on the old man's shoulder and head.
Madame Martin, amused by this spectacle, called Choulette from the threshold.

He was softly humming a tune, and she asked him why he had not gone with her to visit the Spanish chapel.
He arose and replied: "Madame, you are preoccupied by vain images; but I live in life and in truth." He shook the cobbler's hand and followed the two ladies.
"While going to church," he said, "I saw this old man, who, bending over his work, and pressing a last between his knees as in a vise, was sewing coarse shoes.

I felt that he was simple and kind.

I said to him, in Italian: 'My father, will you drink with me a glass of Chianti ?' He consented.

He went for a flagon and some glasses, and I kept the shop." And Choulette pointed to two glasses and a flagon placed on a stove.
"When he came back we drank together; I said vague but kind things to him, and I charmed him by the sweetness of sounds.