In the streets, at every step, old women standing like pines in a forest, called them, making signals. "Let us flee from this stench," said the fat monk, who was a Czech and who was called Father Karel by his companions. Croniamantal and the monks stopped at last before a great convent door. At the sound of the bell the porter came to let them in. The two thin monks said good-bye to Croniamantal, who remained alone with Father Karel in a parlor that was richly furnished. "My child," said Father Karel, "you are in a unique convent. The monks who inhabit it are all very proper people. We have old archdukes, and even former architects, soldiers, scientists, poets, inventors, a few monks expelled from France, and some lay guests of good breeding. All of them are saints. I, myself, such as you see me, with my lorgnon and my pot-belly, am a saint. I shall show you your room, where you may stay until nine o'clock; then you will hear the bell ring and I shall come to look for you." Father Karel guided Croniamantal through long corridors. Then they went up a stairway of white marble and on the second floor, Father Karel opened a door and said: "Your room." He showed him the electric button and left. The room was round, the bed and the chairs were round; on the chimney piece a skull looked like an old cheese. Croniamantal stood by the window, under which spread the teeming darkness of a large monastery garden, from which there seemed to rise laughter, sighs, cries of joy, as if a thousand couples were embracing each other. Then a woman's voice in the garden sang a song which Croniamantal had heard before: _...Croquemitaine Wears the rose and the lilac The King is a-coming --Hello Germaine --Croquemitaine Wilt thou come back again?_ And Croniamantal began to sing the rest: --_Hello Germaine I come to love among thine arms._ Then he heard the voice of Tristouse continuing the couplet. And voices of men here and there, sang airs that were strange or grave, while the cracked voice of an old man stuttered: _Vexilla regis prodeunt..._ At this moment Father Karel entered the room, as a bell rang full force. "Well, my boy! Listening to the sounds of our fine garden? It is full of memories, this earthly paradise. Tychobrahé made love there with a pretty Jewess who said to him all the time: Chazer,--which means pig in the jargon.[13] I myself, have seen such and such an archduke play with a pretty boy whose behind was shaped like a heart. Let us come to dinner." They arrived in a vast refectory still empty, and the poet examined at his leisure the frescoes which covered the wall. One was of Noah, dead-drunk on a couch. His son Cham was uncovering his nakedness, that is to say the root of a vine naively and prettily painted whose branches served as a genealogical tree, or something of the sort, for they had painted the names of all the abbés in red letters on all the leaves.