"Yes, I've heard of it. A phantom that is said to haunt the Grand-Nesle."
"Just so. Well, well! if you know that, I can tell you the rest. Fancy that Dame Perrine—"
"Colombe's governess?"
"Just so. Well, well, it's easy to see that you're a friend of the family. Fancy then that Dame Perrine, in a nocturnal walk which she was taking for her health, thought that she saw the ghostly monk also taking a walk in the garden of the Grand-Nesle, while at the same time Dame Ruperta—You know Dame Ruperta?"
"Isn't she Cellini's old servant?"
"Just so. While Dame Ruperta, during one of her fits of sleeplessness, saw flames darting from the eyes, nose, and mouth of the great statue of Mars which you have seen in the gardens of the Grand-Nesle."
"Yes, a veritable chef-d'œuvre!" said Marmagne.
"Chef-d'œuvre is the word. Cellini makes nothing else. Flow, these two respectable ladies—I speak of Dame Perrine and Dame Ruperta—agreed between themselves that the two apparitions had the same cause, and that the demon, who stalked abroad at night in the guise of the ghostly monk, ascended at cock-crow into the head of the god Mars, a fitting retreat for a lost soul like him, and was there consumed by such fierce flames that they came out through the statue's eyes, nose, and ears."
"What sort of a fairy tale is this, my dear man?" said Marmagne, unable to tell whether the student was joking or talking seriously.
"The tale of a ghost, my friend, nothing more nor less."