that lifetime--to wit, three days--which I passed exchanging looks
with Zena, and changing linen every day. It was all the more violently
titillating because the slightest motion was significant and dangerous.
At last it must have dawned upon Zena's mind that none but a Frenchman
and an artist was daring enough to make eyes at her in the midst of the
perils by which she was surrounded; and as she hated her hideous pirate,
she answered my glances with delightful ogles fit to raise a man to
the summit of Paradise without pulleys. I attained to the height of Don
Quixote; I rose to exaltation! and I cried: 'The monster may kill me,
but I'll go, I'll go!' I gave up landscape and studied the ignoble
dwelling of the Uscoque. That night, changed linen, and put on the most
perfumed shirt I had; then I crossed the street, and entered--"

"The house?" cried Oscar.

"The house?" echoed Georges.

"The house," said Schinner.

"Well, you're a bold dog," cried farmer Leger. "I should have kept out
of it myself."

"Especially as you could never have got through the doorway," replied
Schinner. "So in I went," he resumed, "and I found two hands stretched
out to meet mine. I said nothing, for those hands, soft as the peel of
an onion, enjoined me to silence. A whisper breathed into my ear, 'He
sleeps!' Then, as we were sure that nobody would see us, we went to
walk, Zena and I, upon the ramparts, but accompanied, if you please, by
a duenna, as hideous as an old portress, who didn't leave us any more
than our shadow; and I couldn't persuade Madame Pirate to send her away.
The next night we did the same thing, and again I wanted to get rid of
the old woman, but Zena resisted. As my sweet love spoke only Greek, and
I Venetian, we couldn't understand each other, and so we quarrelled.
I said to myself, in changing linen, 'As sure as fate, the next time
there'll be no old woman, and we can make it all up with the language of
love.' Instead of which, fate willed that that old woman should save
my life! You'll hear how. The weather was fine, and, not to create
suspicion, I took a turn at landscape,--this was after our quarrel was
made up, you understand. After walking along the ramparts for some time,
I was coming tranquilly home with my hands in my pockets, when I saw the
street crowded with people. Such a crowd! like that for an execution. It
fell upon me; I was seized, garroted, gagged, and guarded by the police.
Ah! you don't know--and I