"To be sure!—Oh! you will see some pretty things here: a magnificent botanical garden, a fine college, and our bridge, formed by the calcareous deposits from the water of a spring!—I say nothing of our apricot pies; you don’t seem to care for sweetmeats. But you will be surprised, amazed, by the beauty of the neighborhood!"
"Nothing surprises or amazes me now."
"Oh! that makes a difference.—By the way, do you intend to sleep here?"
The stranger did not answer this question; he passed his hand across his brow and seemed to reflect; at last he asked the landlord:
"Are there none of the Granval family left in this town?"
"The Granval family!" rejoined the astonished host; "what! did you ever know them? They were very rich people, the Granvals! very highly esteemed and——"
"I know what they were; I ask you if there are any of the family still here?"
"No, not one. Monsieur Granval the elder died about five years ago, leaving a son and a daughter. The son enjoyed very poor health; it didn’t do him any good to take the waters at Mont d’Or—they didn’t make him any stouter. He took it into his head to marry, and that finished him; he died two years ago. As for the daughter, she married a merchant and went to Italy with him."
The stranger listened with his elbows on the table and his head resting on his hands. When the inn-keeper had ceased to speak, he uttered a fierce oath, then muttered:
"Some are dead, the others have left the country! How everything changes in a few years, how everybody disappears!"