THE EYES OF ST. LJUBOV
by her golden voice did I recognize her. I listened to their
childish talk, and joined in it, and heard it all from her lips.
Then, a few days later, something happened. A lady entered.
There Elphénor became silent, for the door was violently
shaken from the outside.
“Come in,” he said.
The door was pushed open, then shut again, but no one
had entered. The disciples exchanged a glance of amusement;
one of them said:
“ Has a lady entered?”
They were all made merry by that exhibition of Neptunian
spirit of apropos. But Elphénor Pistouillat, like the French
Southerner he was, missed the courteous element in life, and
began to curse the twelve young men. He was a bad-tempered
man, and a very theatrical one.
He rose and walked to him who had caused them all to
laugh.
“T know you, sir,” Elphénor said, purple in the face, “IT
know you, unwholesome monkey. Your father was adealer in
pork sausages and cooked ham, a trader in swine. Nothing
better could be expected from you than your pig-like groans.”
His blood was boiling already, and these few words he
uttered were but a preliminary letting out of steam. He
walked in the dark to a large cupboard at the far end of his
room and took from a shelf twelve little wax figures which
he stood on asmall table. Rapidly he mumbled an invocation,
an incantation, and a deprecation. Then he walked to the
fireplace, took the red-hot poker which he kept ever ready for
the purpose of lighting his charcoal, and returned with it to
the table.
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