He goes to bed at ten,
and gets up at two. This would not hurt him if he were better fed, but he
eats little besides his soup, and drinks bad _piquette_.'
The man went back to his kitchen, and then to his bed close by; the flame
of the lamp became sick unto death, for it now wanted oil, and the house
grew so quiet that the squeaking of the rats and the pattering of their
feet could be heard from places that seemed far away. But for the rumbling
of the thunder, the only sound from the mysterious world outside would have
been the scream, now like the cry of a cat, now like a puppy's bark, of
an owl flying with muffled wings up and down the valley. Very different,
however, was this little owl's cry from the madman's shout of the great
eagle owl, which I had often heard in the rocky vale of the Alzon. I
threw open the window of my bedroom and looked out upon the night. It
was illumined, not by moon nor by stars, but by lightning flashes, which
followed one another with such rapidity that there was no darkness. The
quivering flame threw an awful brightness into the great woods upon the
tops of the hills.
A few hours later I was wandering through these woods, which were now
filled with another light that dried the dripping leaves.
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