where stood the portal and where stood the altar, two gigantic bays, so
that, from the threshold of the edifice, the eye plunges into the forest
beyond as through a deep triumphal arch. In this solitary spot the effect
is unexpected and solemn. I was delighted with it. "Monsieur," I said to
the miller, who, since my arrival, had been watching my every step from a
distance with that fierce mistrust which is a peculiarity of this part of
the country, "I have been requested to examine and to sketch these ruins.
That work will require several days; could you not spare me a daily trip
from the town to the abbey and back, by furnishing me with such
accommodations as you can, for a week or two?"

The miller, a thorough Norman, examined me from head to foot without
answering, like a man who knows that silence is of gold; he measured me,
he gauged me, he weighed me, and finally, opening his flour-coated lips,
he called his wife. The latter appeared at once upon the threshold of the
chapter-hall, converted into a cow-pen, and I had to repeat my request to
her. She examined me in her turn, but not at such great length as her
husband, and, with the superior scent of her sex, her conclusion was, as I
had the right to expect, that of the _præses_ in the _Malade Imaginaire_:
"_Dignus es intrare_." The miller, who saw what turn things were taking,
lifted his cap and treated me to a smile. I must add that these excellent
people, once the ice was broken, tried in every way to compensate me, by a
thousand eager attentions, for the excessive caution of their reception.
They wished to give up to me their own room, adorned with the Adventures
of Telemachus, but I preferred--as Mentor would have done--a cell of
austere nudity, of which the window, with small, lozenge-shaped panes,
opens on the ruined portal of the church and the horizon of the forest.

Had I been a few years younger, I would have enjoyed keenly this poetic
installation; but I am turning gray, friend Paul, or at least I fear so,