Are you ready? Follow me!"
The guitar twanged, and the two voices upraised, in harmony and
with a startling loudness, the chorus of a song of old Beranger's:-
"Commissaire! Commissaire!
Colin bat sa menagere."
The stones of Castel-le-Gachis thrilled at this audacious
innovation. Hitherto had the night been sacred to repose and
nightcaps; and now what was this? Window after window was opened;
matches scratched, and candles began to flicker; swollen sleepy
faces peered forth into the starlight. There were the two figures
before the Commissary's house, each bolt upright, with head thrown
back and eyes interrogating the starry heavens; the guitar wailed,
shouted, and reverberated like half an orchestra; and the voices,
with a crisp and spirited delivery, hurled the appropriate burden
at the Commissary's window. All the echoes repeated the
functionary's name. It was more like an entr'acte in a farce of
Moliere's than a passage of real life in Castel-le-Gachis.
The Commissary, if he was not the first, was not the last of the
neighbours to yield to the influence of music, and furiously throw
open the window of his bedroom. He was beside himself with rage.
He leaned far over the window-sill, raying and gesticulating; the
tassel of his white night-cap danced like a thing of life: he
opened his mouth to dimensions hitherto unprecedented, and yet his
voice, instead of escaping from it in a roar, came forth shrill and
choked and tottering.
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