Hearing the sound of musketry that was
evidently coming nearer, she jumped from stone to stone, as if crossing
a rivulet, to ask shelter. The house was closed by a door opening in
two parts; the lower one of wood, heavy and massive, the upper one a
shutter which served as a window. In many of the smaller towns of
France the shops have the same type of door though far more decorated,
the lower half possessing a call-bell. The door in question opened
with a wooden latch worthy of the golden age, and the upper part was
never closed except at night, for it was the only opening through
which daylight could enter the room. There was, to be sure, a clumsy
window, but the glass was thick like the bottom of a bottle, and the
lead which held the panes in place took so much room that the opening
seemed intended to intercept the light rather than admit it. As soon
as Mademoiselle de Verneuil had turned the creaking hinges of the
lower door she smelt an intolerable ammoniacal odor, and saw that the
beasts in the stable had kicked through the inner partition which
separated the stable from the dwelling. The interior of the farmhouse,
for such it was, did not belie its exterior.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was asking herself how it was possible for
human beings to live in such habitual filth, when a ragged boy about
eight or nine years old suddenly presented his fresh and rosy face,
with a pair of fat cheeks, lively eyes, ivory teeth, and a mass of
fair hair, which fell in curls upon his half-naked shoulders.
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