The Red Inn | Page 6

courtyard of the inn. This courtyard was surrounded by very
high walls and was full, for the time being, of cattle and horses, the
stables being occupied by human beings. The great gate leading into
this courtyard had been so carefully barricaded that to save time the
landlord had brought the merchant and sailors into the public room
through the door opening on the roadway. After having opened the
window, as requested by Prosper Magnan, he closed this door, slipped
the iron bars into their places and ran the bolts. The landlord's room,
where the two young surgeons were to sleep, adjoined the public room,
and was separated by a somewhat thin partition from the kitchen, where
the landlord and his wife intended, probably, to pass the night. The

servant-woman had left the premises to find a lodging in some crib or
hayloft. It is therefore easy to see that the kitchen, the landlord's
chamber, and the public room were, to some extent, isolated from the
rest of the house. In the courtyard were two large dogs, whose
deep-toned barking showed vigilant and easily roused guardians.
"What silence! and what a beautiful night!" said Wilhelm, looking at
the sky through the window, as the landlord was fastening the door.
The lapping of the river against the wharf was the only sound to be
heard.
"Messieurs," said the merchant, "permit me to offer you a few bottles
of wine to wash down the carp. We'll ease the fatigues of the day by
drinking. From your manner and the state of your clothes, I judge that
you have made, like me, a good bit of a journey to-day."
The two friends accepted, and the landlord went out by a door through
the kitchen to his cellar, situated, no doubt, under this portion of the
building. When five venerable bottles which he presently brought back
with him appeared on the table, the wife brought in the rest of the
supper. She gave to the dishes and to the room generally the glance of a
mistress, and then, sure of having attended to all the wants of the
travellers, she returned to the kitchen.
The four men, for the landlord was invited to drink, did not hear her go
to bed, but later, during the intervals of silence which came into their
talk, certain strongly accentuated snores, made the more sonorous by
the thin planks of the loft in which she had ensconced herself, made the
guests laugh and also the husband. Towards midnight, when nothing
remained on the table but biscuits, cheese, dried fruit, and good wine,
the guests, chiefly the young Frenchmen, became communicative. The
latter talked of their homes, their studies, and of the war. The
conversation grew lively. Prosper Magnan brought a few tears to the
merchant's eyes, when with the frankness and naivete of a good and
tender nature, he talked of what his mother must be doing at that hour,
while he was sitting drinking on the banks of the Rhine.

"I can see her," he said, "reading her prayers before she goes to bed.
She won't forget me; she is certain to say to herself, 'My poor Prosper; I
wonder where he is now!' If she has won a few sous from her
neighbors--your mother, perhaps," he added, nudging Wilhelm's elbow
--"she'll go and put them in the great red earthenware pot, where she is
accumulating a sum sufficient to buy the thirty acres adjoining her little
estate at Lescheville. Those thirty acres are worth at least sixty
thousand francs. Such fine fields! Ah! if I had them I'd live all my days
at Lescheville, without other ambition! How my father used to long for
those thirty acres and the pretty brook which winds through the
meadows! But he died without ever being able to buy them. Many's the
time I've played there!"
"Monsieur Wahlenfer, haven't you also your 'hoc erat in votis'?" asked
Wilhelm.
"Yes, monsieur, but it came to pass, and now--"
The good man was silent, and did not finish his sentence.
"As for me," said the landlord, whose face was rather flushed, "I
bought a field last spring, which I had been wanting for ten years."
They talked thus like men whose tongues are loosened by wine, and
they each took that friendly liking to the others of which we are never
stingy on a journey; so that when the time came to separate for the
night, Wilhelm offered his bed to the merchant.
"You can accept it without hesitation," he said, "for I can sleep with
Prosper. It won't be the first, nor the last time either. You are our elder,
and we ought to honor age!"
"Bah!" said the landlord, "my wife's bed has several mattresses; take
one off and put it on