***
Now she lived in the attic and looked out on a large plantation. In the middle of this plantation stood a tobacco shed, which pleased her, because it had no windows behind which curious people could sit and stare at her. Sparrows had built their nests under the eaves, but the shed was no longer used for drying or storing tobacco, which was not, now, grown on the plantation.
There she lived during the summer, looking at the shed and wondering what purpose it could possibly serve, for the doors were locked with large padlocks, padlocks, and nobody ever went in or out.
She knew that it contained secrets, and what these secrets were, she was to learn sooner than she expected.
A few little shreds of her great reputation, to which she clung desperately, and which helped her to bear her life, were still left: the memory of her best parts, Carmen and Aida, for which no successor had yet been found; the public still remembered her impersonation of these parts, which had been beyond praise.
Very well, August came; the street lamps were again lighted in the evenings, and the theatres were reopened.
The singer sat at her window and looked at the tobacco shed, which had been painted a bright red, and, moreover, had just received a new red-tiled roof.
A man walked across the potato field; he carried a large rusty key, with which he opened the shed and went in.
Then two other men arrived; two men whom she thought she had seen before; and they, too, disappeared in the shed.
It began to be interesting.