"Just so. Well, well, it's easy to see that you're a friend of the family. Fancy then that Dame Perrine, in a nocturnal walk which she was taking for her health, thought that she saw the ghostly monk also taking a walk in the garden of the Grand-Nesle, while at the same time Dame Ruperta--You know Dame Ruperta?" "Isn't she Cellini's old servant?" "Just so. While Dame Ruperta, during one of her fits of sleeplessness, saw flames darting from the eyes, nose, and mouth of the great statue of Mars which you have seen in the gardens of the Grand-Nesle." "Yes, a veritable _chef-d'œuvre_!" said Marmagne. "_Chef-d'œuvre_ is the word. Cellini makes nothing else. Flow, these two respectable ladies--I speak of Dame Perrine and Dame Ruperta--agreed between themselves that the two apparitions had the same cause, and that the demon, who stalked abroad at night in the guise of the ghostly monk, ascended at cock-crow into the head of the god Mars, a fitting retreat for a lost soul like him, and was there consumed by such fierce flames that they came out through the statue's eyes, nose, and ears." "What sort of a fairy tale is this, my dear man?" said Marmagne, unable to tell whether the student was joking or talking seriously. "The tale of a ghost, my friend, nothing more nor less." "Can it be that an intelligent fellow like you believes in such stuff?" "Why no, I don't believe in it," said Jacques Aubry. "That is just why I concluded to pass the night in a poplar tree to clear up the mystery, and find out who the demon really is who is upsetting the whole household. So I pretended to come out, but instead of closing the door of the Grand-Nesle behind me I closed it in front of me, glided back in the darkness without being seen, and got safely to the poplar upon which I had my eye: five minutes later I was snugly ensconced among the branches on a level with Mars's head. Now guess what I saw." "How can I guess, pray?" "To be sure, one must be a sorcerer to guess such things. In the first place I saw the great door open; the door at the top of the steps, you know?" "Yes, yes, I know it," said Marmagne. "I saw the door open and a man put his nose out to see if there was any one in the courtyard. It was Hermann, the fat German." "Yes, Hermann, the fat German," echoed Marmagne. "When he was fully assured that the courtyard was deserted, having looked about everywhere, except in the tree, where, as you can imagine, he was very far from suspecting my presence, he came out, closed the door behind him, descended the five or six steps, and went straight to the door of the Petit-Nesle, where he knocked three times. At that signal a woman came out of the Petit-Nesle and opened the door. This woman was our friend Dame Perrine, who apparently has a weakness for walking about at night with our Goliath." "No, really? Oh the poor provost!"