The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only
a few vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeting rapidly across the
stars. It was bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things
seemed almost more definite than in the broadest daylight. The
sleeping city was absolutely still: a company of white hoods, a
field full of little Alps, below the twinkling stars. Villon
cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he
went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the glittering
streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the
cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own
plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind
him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with
a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his
own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly
forward in the snow.
Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows
at Montfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night's existence,
for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald
head and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart,
and he kept quickening his pace as if he could escape from
unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked
back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the
only moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind
swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning
to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316