Crouching under my marble sheet, I descended from these lofty thoughts to the simple impressions of the place and moment. My anxiety mingled with pleasure was analogous to that which I used to experience in winter in my turret at Combourg, as I listened to the wind: a breeze and a shadow possess a kindred nature. Little by little I grew accustomed to the darkness and distinguished the figures placed over the tombs. I looked up at the vaults of this English Saint-Denis, whence one might say that the years that have been and the issues of the past hung down like Gothic lamps: the entire edifice was as it were a monolithic temple of ages turned to stone. I had counted ten o'clock, eleven o'clock by the abbey clock: the hammer rising and falling upon the bell-metal was the only living creature in those regions beside myself. Outside, the sound of a carriage, the voice of the watchman: that was all; those distant sounds of earth reached me as though from one world to another. The fog from the Thames and the smoke of coal crept into the basilica, and spread a denser dusk around. At last a twilight spread out in a corner filled with the dimmest shadows: with fixed gaze I watched the progressive growth of the light; did it emanate from the two sons[177] of Edward IV., assassinated by their uncle? The great tragedian says: "O thus," quoth Dighton, "lay the gentle babes,"-- "Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, "girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms: Their lips were four red roses on a stalk, Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other[178]." God did not send me those two sad and charming souls; but the light phantom of a scarcely adolescent woman appeared carrying a light sheltered in a sheet of paper twisted shell-wise: it was the little bell-ringer. I heard the sound of a kiss, and the bell tolled the break of day. The ringer was quite terrified when I went out with her through the gate of the cloisters. I told her of my adventure; she said she had come to do duty for her father, who was sick: we did not speak of the kiss. * I amused Hingant with the story of my adventure, and we made a plan to lock ourselves in at Westminster; but our distress summoned us to the dead in a less poetic manner.