e. It was more like an entr'acte in a
farce of Moliere's than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gachis.

The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously threw open
the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage. He leaned
far over the window-sill, raving and gesticulating; the tassel of his
white nightcap danced like a thing of life: he opened his mouth to
dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his voice, instead of
escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and choked and tottering.
A little more serenading, and it was clear he would be better acquainted
with the apoplexy.

I scorn to reproduce his language; he touched upon too many serious
topics by the way for a quiet story-teller. Although he was known for a
man who was prompt with his tongue, and had a power of strong expression
at command, he excelled himself so remarkably this night that one maiden
lady, who had got out of bed like the rest to hear the serenade, was
obliged to shut her window at the second clause. Even what she had
heard disquieted her conscience; and next day she said she scarcely
reckoned as a maiden lady any longer.

Leon tried to explain his predicament, but he received nothing but
threats of arrest by way of answer.

"If I come down to you!" cried the Commissary.

"Ay," said Leon, "do!"

"I will not!" cried the Commissary.

"You dare not!" answered Leon.

At that the Commissary closed his window.

"All is over," said the singer. "The serenade was perhaps ill-judged.
These boors have no sense of humour."

"Let us get away from here," said Elvira, with a shiver. "All these
people looking--it is so rude and so brutal." And then giving way once
more to passion--"Brutes!" she cried aloud to the candle-lit
spectators--"brutes! brutes! brutes!"

"_Sauve qui peut_," said Leon. "You have done it now!"

And taking the guitar in one hand and the case in the other, he led the
way with something too precipitate to be merely called precipitation
from the scene of this absurd adventure.

CHAPTER IV

To the west of Castel-le-Gachis four rows of venerable lime-trees
formed, in this starry night, a twilit avenue with two side aisles of
pitch darkness. Here and there stone benches were disposed between the
trunks. There was not a breath of wind; a heavy atmosphere of perfume
hung about the alleys; and every leaf stood stock-still upon it