“We others remained behind, trembling with terror and anxiety, without eating, without speaking. My father tried to reassure us. ‛You will see,’ he said, ‛that it will be some beggar or some traveller lost in the snow. After he rang the first time, seeing that the door was not opened at once, he has tried to find his way, then, failing to do so, he has come back to our door.’
“We felt as if our uncle’s absence lasted an hour. Then he returned furious and swearing. ‛There’s nothing, as I’m alive! Some one’s playing a trick! There’s nothing but that confounded dog howling a hundred yards away from the walls. If I had had my gun, I’d have shot him to make him quiet!’
“We sat down again, but we all continued anxious. We felt that this was not the end of it, that something was going to happen, and that presently the bell would ring again.
“And it did sound, at the very moment when we were cutting the Twelfth cake. All the men got up together. My uncle François, who had drunk some champagne, declared that he was going to massacre IT, so furiously that my mother and my aunt caught hold of him to stop him. My father, in spite of being quite calm and not very fit (he dragged one leg ever after it had been broken by a fall from a horse), declared in his turn that he wanted to know what it was, and that he was going. My brothers, aged nineteen and twenty, ran to get their guns; and, as no one paid much attention to me, I possessed myself of a rook-rifle and so prepared to accompany the expedition.
“It set out at once. My father and my uncle led, with Baptiste carrying a lantern. My brothers Jacques and Paul followed, and I brought up the rear in spite of my mother’s entreaties, who remained with her sister and my cousins on the door-step.
“The snow had begun again the last hour, and the trees were laden. The pines were bending under the heavy dusky mantle, like white pyramids, or enormous sugar loaves; and through the grey curtain of fine hurrying flakes it was almost impossible to make out the smaller shrubs, all pale in the gloom. The snow was falling so quickly that nothing else could be seen ten paces off. But the lantern threw a great light before us. When we began to descend the corkscrew staircase hollowed in the thickness of the wall, I was afraid in good earnest. I felt as if some one was walking behind me; as if some one was about to catch me by the shoulders and carry me off; and I wanted to go home. But, as I should have had to go all the way back through the garden, I did not dare.
“I heard the door to the plain being opened; then my uncle began to swear afresh. ‛Hang it! he’s off again. If I could see his shadow, I’d not miss him, the—.’
“It was eerie to see the plain, or rather to feel it was there before one; for it could not be seen, all that was visible was an endless veil of snow, above, below, in front, to right, to left, everywhere.
“My uncle spoke again, ‛Wait, there is the dog howling. I’ll go and show it how I can shoot. That will always be something.’
“But my father, who was a kindly man, replied, ‛Better go and look for the poor animal that’s crying with hunger. It’s barking for help, poor wretch. It’s calling like a human being in distress. Let’s go to it.’