At that the Commissary closed his window.
“All is over,” said the singer. “The serenade was perhaps ill-judged. These boors have no sense of humour.”
“Let us get away from here,” said Elvira, with a shiver. “All these people looking—it is so rude and so brutal.” And then giving way once more to passion—“Brutes!” she cried aloud to the candle-lit spectators—“brutes! brutes! brutes!”
“Sauve qui peut,” said Léon. “You have done it now!”
And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led the way with something too precipitate to be merely called precipitation from the scene of this absurd adventure.
CHAPTER IV
To the west of Castel-le-Gâchis four rows of venerable lime-trees formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon its twig. Hither, after vainly knocking at an inn or two, the Berthelinis came at length to pass the night. After an amiable contention, Léon insisted on giving his coat to Elvira, and they sat down together on the first bench in silence. Léon made a cigarette, which he smoked to an end, looking up into the trees, and, beyond them, at the constellations, of which he tried vainly to recall the names. The silence was broken by the church bell; it rang the four quarters on a light and tinkling measure; then followed a single deep stroke that died slowly away with a thrill; and stillness resumed its empire.
“One,” said Léon. “Four hours till daylight. It is warm; it is starry; I have matches and tobacco. Do not let us exaggerate, Elvira—the experience is positively charming. I feel a glow within me; I am born again. This is the poetry of life. Think of Cooper’s novels, my dear.”
“Léon,” she said fiercely, “how can you talk such wicked, infamous nonsense? To pass all night out-of-doors—it is like a nightmare! We shall die.”
“You suffer yourself to be led away,” he replied soothingly. “It is not unpleasant here; only you brood. Come, now, let us repeat a scene. Shall we try Alceste and Célimène? No? Or a passage from the ‘Two Orphans’? Come, now, it will occupy your mind; I will play up to you as I never have played before; I feel art moving in my bones.”