“Why?”
“Ah! Why? Listen. It was forty-one years ago, forty-one years this very day, Epiphany. We were then living at Roüy-le-Tors, on the ramparts. But I must first describe the house, in order that you may understand properly. Roüy is built on a slope, or rather on a knoll which commands a wide extent of that country. We had a house there with a fine hanging garden, supported in the air by the old city walls. So the house was in the town, in the street, while the garden overlooked the plain. There was also a postern-gate from this garden to the country, at the foot of a secret staircase which went down in the thickness of the walls, like those read of in romances. A road passed by this gate, which was furnished with a big bell, for the peasants used to bring their provisions that way to escape the long round about.
“You can see the places, can’t you? Well, that year, on Twelfth-day, it had been snowing for a week. It looked like the end of the world. It chilled our very soul when we went to the ramparts to look at the plain, the great white landscape, all white, icy, shining like varnish. It looked as if the good Lord had wrapped up the Earth to send it to the lumber-room of old worlds. I can assure you that it was very dreary.
“The whole family was together at that moment, and we were numerous, very numerous, my father, my mother, my uncle and aunt, my two brothers, and my four cousins; pretty girls they were. I am married to the youngest. Of all that company there are only three alive now, my wife, myself, and my sister-in-law at Marseilles. Bless me, how a family slips away! It makes me tremble when I think of it. I was fifteen then; now I am fifty-six.
“Well, we were going to keep Twelfth-night, and we were very merry, very merry! All were in the drawing-room waiting dinner, when my elder brother, Jacques, suddenly said, ‛There’s a dog been howling in the plain for the last ten minutes. It must be some poor beast that is lost.’
“We had not finished speaking when the garden-bell rang. It had a deep church-bell tone, which made one think of the dead. We all shivered at the sound. My father called the servant and told him to go and look. There was perfect silence as we waited; we were thinking of the snow that covered all the earth. When the man returned, he declared that he had seen nothing. The dog was still howling incessantly, and the sound came from exactly the same place.
“We sat down to table, but we were still a little upset, especially we young people. All went nicely until the joint, when, hark, the bell began ringing again, three times in succession, three great, long peals, which thrilled us to our finger-tips and made us catch our breath. We sat looking at each other, our forks in the air, still listening, seized with a sort of supernatural fear.
“At last my mother spoke. ‛It is extraordinary that they should have waited so long before coming back. Do not go alone, Baptiste; one of these gentlemen will go with you.’
“My uncle François rose. He was a Hercules, very proud of his strength, and afraid of nothing on earth. My father said to him, ‛Take a gun. You never know what it may be.’
“But my uncle only took a stick, and went out at once with the servant.