renades broke
upon my ears.

My own room was lit by the yellow flame of a solitary candle, rising,
untroubled by the slightest breath of wind, straight into the air. A
large rug of old-rose covered the floor, an old-rose velvet canopy
draped a long table, hanging down at the corners in straight, heavy
creases, and the wallpaper was a golden yellow with faint stripes of
silvery-gray glaze. By the side of the wooden bed stood a high cabinet
holding about fifty terra-cotta and porcelain figurines, shiny
shepherdesses with shiny pink cheeks, Louis XV peasants with rakes on
their shoulders, and three little dogs made of a material the color of
cocoa. The gem of the collection was an eighteenth-century porcelain of
a youth and a maid sitting on opposite sides of a curved bench over
whose center rose a blossoming bush. The youth, dressed in black, and
wearing yellow stockings, looked with an amorous smile at the girl in
her gorgeous dress of flowering brocade.

A marbly-white fireplace stood in the corner, overhung by a great Louis
XV mirror with a gilt frame of rich, voluptuous curves. On the mantel
lay a scarf of old-rose velvet smelling decidedly musty. Alone, apart,
upon this mantel, as an altar, stood a colored plaster bust of Jeanne
d'Arc, showing her in the beauty of her winsome youth. The pale, girlish
face dominated the shadowy room with its dreamy, innocent loveliness.

There came a knock at the door, and so still was the town and the house
that the knock had the effect of something dramatic and portentous. A
big man, with bulging, pink cheeks, a large, chestnut mustache, and
brown eyes full of philosophic curiosity, stood in the doorway. The
uniform that he was wearing was unusually neat and clean.

"So you are the American I am to have as neighbor," said he.

"Yes," I replied.

"I am the caporal in charge of the depot of the engineers in the
cellar," continued my visitor, "and I thought I'd come in and see how
you were."

I invited him to enter.

"Do you find yourself comfortable here, son?"

"Yes. I consider myself privileged to have the use of the room. Have a
cigarette?"

"Are these American cigarettes?"

"Yes."

"Your American tobacco is fine, son. But in America everybody is a
millionaire and has the best of everything--isn't that so? I should like
to go to America."

"A Frenchman is never happy out of France."

Comfortably seated in a big, ugly chair, he puffed his cigarette and
meditated.