, on her left. Gazonal did not at
first perceive them.

The toad, of surprising dimensions, was less alarming in himself than
through the effect of two topaz eyes, large as a ten-sous piece, which
cast forth vivid gleams. It was impossible to endure that look. The toad
is a creature as yet unexplained. Perhaps the whole animal creation,
including man, is comprised in it; for, as Lassailly said, the toad
exists indefinitely; and, as we know, it is of all created animals the
one whose marriage lasts the longest.

The black hen had a cage about two feet distant from the table, covered
with a green cloth, to which she came along a plank which formed a sort
of drawbridge between the cage and the table.

When the woman, the least real of the creatures in this Hoffmanesque
den, said to Gazonal: "Cut!" the worthy provincial shuddered
involuntarily. That which renders these beings so formidable is the
importance of what we want to know. People go to them, as they know very
well, to buy hope.

The den of the sibyl was much darker than the antechamber; the color
of the walls could scarcely be distinguished. The ceiling, blackened
by smoke, far from reflecting the little light that came from a window
obstructed by pale and sickly vegetations, absorbed the greater part
of it; but the table where the sorceress sat received what there was of
this half-light fully. The table, the chair of the woman, and that on
which Gazonal was seated, formed the entire furniture of the little
room, which was divided at one end by a sort of loft where Madame
Fontaine probably slept. Gazonal heard through a half-opened door the
bubbling murmur of a soup-pot. That kitchen sound, accompanied by a
composite odor in which the effluvia of a sink predominated, mingled
incongruous ideas of the necessities of actual life with those of
supernatural power. Disgust entered into curiosity.

Gazonal observed one stair of pine wood, the lowest no doubt of the
staircase which led to the loft. He took in these minor details at a
glance, with a sense of nausea. It was all quite otherwise alarming than
the romantic tales and scenes of German drama lead one to expect; here
was suffocating actuality. The air diffused a sort of dizzy heaviness,
the dim light rasped the nerves. When the Southerner, impelled by a
species of self-assertion, gazed firmly at the toad, he felt a sort of
emetic heat at the pit of his stomach, and was conscious of a
terror like that a crimin