Night. Not a carriage in the street. Silence.
The snoring of Theophrastus ceased. Was it that he had sunk into a deeper sleep? No: he sleeps no more. His throat is dry; he stares into the darkness with affrighted eyes; he grips with a cold hand, a hand which fear is freezing, the shoulder of Marceline and awakens her.
He says in a low voice, so low that she does not even hear him, "Do you hear?"
Marceline holds her breath; she clutches her husband's icy hand. They strain their ears; and they undoubtedly do hear something—in the flat.
In very truth it is nothing to laugh at. The man who can laugh at an inexplicable noise, at night, in a flat, has not yet been born! There are brave men, splendidly brave, who will stick at nothing, who will go anywhere at night, into the emptiest streets of the most disreputable quarters, who would not hesitate to venture, just for the pleasure of it, into lampless blind alleys. But I tell you, because it is the truth, and you know it is the truth, that the man who can laugh at an inexplicable noise, at night, in a flat, has not yet been born.
We have already seen Theophrastus sleepless on the night of the revelation of the dreadful secret which sprang from the stones of the Conciergerie. The anxiety which weighed on his heart that night, terrible as it had been, was as nothing compared with that which was now strangling him, because there was at night, in the flat, an inexplicable noise.
It was truly an odd noise, but beyond all doubting real; it was a long-drawn pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. It came from behind the wall of the next room.
They sat up in bed noiselessly, with bristling hair, and beads of cold sweat standing out on their brows. From the other side of the wall came the strange pur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. It was the purring of a cat; they recognised that purring: it was the purring of the little violet cat. Marceline slipped down under the clothes and whispered:
"It's the purring of the violet cat. Go and see what's the matter with it, Theophrastus."
Theophrastus did not budge; he would have given a hundred thousand rubber stamps to be walking along the boulevard at mid-day.