Quiet was restored in the hotel of N——. The night was fine and the moon at the full. From time immemorial lovers have been pleased to gaze at our satellite. Leon and his lover opened their window, which looked on a small garden, and breathed with delight the fresh air, which was filled with the scent of a bower of clematis.
They had not looked long, however, before a man came to walk in the garden. His head was bowed, his arms crossed, and he had a cigar in his mouth, Leon thought he recognized the nephew of the Englishman who was fond of good port wine.
***
I dislike useless details, and besides, I do not feel called upon to tell the reader things he can readily imagine, nor to relate all that happened hour by hour in the inn at N——. I will merely say that the candle which burned on the fireless mantle-piece of the Blue Chamber was more than half consumed when a strange sound issued from the Englishman’s room, in which there had been silence until now; it was like the fall of a heavy body. To this noise was added a kind of cracking, quite as odd, followed by a smothered cry and several inarticulate words like an oath. The two young occupants of the Blue Chamber shuddered. Perhaps they had been waked up suddenly by it. The noise seemed a sinister one to both of them, for they could not explain it.
“Our friend the Englishman is dreaming,” said Leon, trying to force a smile.
But although he wanted to reassure his companion, he shivered involuntarily. Two or three minutes afterwards a door in the corridor opened cautiously, as it seemed, then closed very quietly. They heard a slow and unsteady footstep which appeared to be trying to disguise its gait.
“What a cursed inn!” exclaimed Leon.
“Ah, it is a paradise!” replied the young woman, letting her head fall on Leon’s shoulder. “I am dead with sleep....”
She sighed, and was very soon fast asleep again.
A famous moralist has said that men are never garrulous when they have all their heart’s desire. It is not surprising, therefore, that Leon made no further attempt to renew the conversation or to discourse upon the noises in the hotel at N——. Nevertheless, he was preoccupied, and his imagination pieced together many events to which in another mood he would have paid no attention. The evil countenance of the Englishman’s nephew returned to his memory. There was hatred in the look that he threw at his uncle even while he spoke humbly to him, doubtless because he was asking for money.