she closed her eyes, when from quite near a furious
voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard crying:
"Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get up, you
b----?"

She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of
a woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will
remember that voice! She said: "Here I am, Patin; what do you want?"

Put Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around
her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a
chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,
near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.

Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to
take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise
her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable
to escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was no
doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked: "Are
you up there, Patin?"

Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart
tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw
nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some straw,
she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a poignant and
supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room below.

He seemed less angry and he was saying: "Nasty weather! Fierce wind!
Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!"

She cried through the ceiling: "Here I am, Patin; I am getting your meal
ready. Don't get angry."

She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself
growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and
get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: "I haven't
had my breakfast, by G--!"

And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked
eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: "Ah! so it's you!"

He shook his head and continued: "Just you wait! I'll teach you how to
loaf."

What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the
dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers
of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,
as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to
attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the cage
and seized the bird, which