in the darkness as they swept the walls in their flight; then
suddenly they seemed to gather up their forces, the floors trembled
under their spasmodic tramping, while they clambered in confusion
up the staircase which led to my room, throwing themselves over the
threshold of my door and uttering indescribable lamentations.

"But enough of this, perhaps you will say; let us now talk a little
of your patron: This terrible man, will you believe it, has not
inspired me with the antagonism which you prophesied. But in the
first place we do not live together from morning to night. The day
after my arrival, he sent me a long list of difficult or mutilated
passages to interpret and restore. It is a work of time, to which
I devote all my afternoons. He has had some of his finest folios
sent to my room, and I live in these like a rat in a Dutch cheese.
It is true, I pass my mornings in his study, where we hold learned
discussions which would edify the Academy of Inscriptions; but to
my delight, after nightfall I can dispose of myself as I choose.
He has even agreed that, after seven o'clock, I may lock myself in
my room, and that no human being under any pretext whatever shall
come to disturb me there. This privilege M. Leminof granted to me
in the most gracious manner, and you can imagine how grateful I am
to him for it. I do not mean to say by this that he is an amiable
man, nor that he cares to be; but he is a man of sense and wit. He
understood me at once, and he means to make me serviceable to him.
I am like a horse who feels that he carries a skilful rider."


V