Tiptoeing cautiously across the grass,
he reached a marble seat which stood beneath a bower of roses and
seemed to be protected by a great terminal statue of the god Pan,
which had been given as a present to Louis by an Eastern prince who
had carried it from Athens. Pressing his hand to his forehead,
Villon tried to recall the events of the evening before, which for
some fantastic reason seemed to lie long centuries behind him. He
could remember dimly an evil looking cell with straw upon the floor
and chains upon the walls; he could recall the sullen faces of
unfriendly gaolers. One of these gaolers he remembered had thrust a
mug of wine into his hand and bade him drink surlily, and he had
drunk greedily, as was his way when free drink was offered to him,
and drinking, drank oblivion sudden and complete.
But why he had gone to a dungeon? His senses ached as he asked
himself this, and faint pictures began to piece themselves together
out of the episodes of the dead night. He saw again the squalid
walls of the Fircone Tavern and his mind jumped back to his
recitation of the ballad and his fierce sense of indignation at the
humiliation of Paris, girdled by a wall of hostile Burgundians and
governed by an impotent king.
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