Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities, dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one knows not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass, where animals glide in and out.
I was exploring this ruin alone.
Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom, like the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the old lady whom I had seen twice.
She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief in her hand.
I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to have been surprised in her grief.
“Yes, monsieur, I am crying. That does not happen often to me.”
“Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you,” I stammered, confused, not knowing what to say. “Some misfortune has doubtless come to you.”
“Yes. No—I am like a lost dog,” she murmured, and began to sob, with her handkerchief over her eyes.
Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her. Then brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her grief alone.