In the midst of this important work I was seized with hunger. The muse is not so hard upon children of a family accustomed to live well as to forbid them to sup with a good appetite. I therefore set myself to do justice to the pâté which smilingly greeted me among my law papers and my alexandrines, and I unfolded the napkin placed at my plate where, to my great surprise, I found a fourth roll.
This surprise yielded quickly to a very simple train of reasoning. If in the plans and previsions of the dowager, the three cabalistic loaves were to remain intact, it was but natural that one should have been consecrated to the demands of my appetite. I tasted the wines and found them of so good a quality that I generously made a sacrifice to the phantoms of the carafes of water, designed for their particular use.
And while eating with great pleasure, I, at length, began to think of the chronicle and to ask myself how I should recount the wonders that I could not dispense with having seen. I regretted that Zéphyrine had not furnished me with more details of the three dead women’s presumed peculiarities. The extract from the magazine of 1650 was not sufficiently explicit: were these ladies to wait until I was asleep before coming, like mice, to nibble the loaves they were supposed to relish so greatly? Or rather, were they likely to appear at any moment, and seat themselves, one at my left, the other at my right, and the third opposite me?
The bell of the castle announced midnight, it was the classic hour, the fatal hour!
CHAPTER II.
The Apparition.
The clock struck twelve, but the last vibration died away without any ghost appearing. I arose, thinking I was rid of them. I had finished eating and, after a dozen leagues on horseback, began to feel the need of sleep, when the bell of the castle which had a very fine timbre solemn and resounding, began again to toll the four quarters and twelve hours with an imposing slowness.
Shall I confess that I felt some emotion at this sort of return of the fantastical hour that I thought had gone by? Why not? So far I had maintained a philosophical composure. Although a fervent disciple of reason, I was none the less a very young man, and a man of imagination, brought up at the knees of a mother, who firmly believed in all the legends which served as lullabies, and which had never appeared in the least laughable to me. I was conscious of experiencing an imperceptible uneasiness, and in order to overcome it—for I felt quite ashamed of it—I hastened to undress myself.
The bell had ceased tolling. I was in bed and about to extinguish my candle, when a clock some distance from the village began in its turn to strike four quarters and twelve hours, but in a tone so lugubrious and with such dreadful nonchalance, that I was seriously discomposed—and still more so, as it had like the castle clock a double stroke, and appeared as if it would never cease.
In fact, for several minutes it seemed as if I would hear it recommence and that it would strike thirty-seven times; but this was a pure illusion, as I assured myself by opening my window. The most profound silence reigned in the castle and throughout the country. The sky was quite overcast, the stars were no longer visible; the air was heavy; and I could see clouds of moths dancing in the ray of light that my candle cast outside. Their uneasiness was a sign of storm. As I have always enjoyed a tempest greatly, I pleased myself with inhaling its approach. Sudden gusts wafted the perfume of the garden towards me. The nightingale sang once more, then ceased, in order to seek a shelter. I forgot my foolish emotion while enjoying this spectacle of reality.
My room opened on the court of honor, which was immense and surrounded by magnificent buildings, whose delicate proportions were defined in pale blue against the dark sky, by the light of the first flashes.