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He began to talk of life in the town of T—-, of the social amusements and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. And you’ll see all our intelligentsi too.’

My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.

‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.

‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’

Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.

‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’

She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.

I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing she was looking at behind my back.

I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied ‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.

‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty dinner-napkin–a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’

He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: ‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion (he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the peasants do)–‘nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the nobility and gentry–there is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his diction.) ‘They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have simply nowhere to go.’

Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me.

‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case you should feel that way inclined….’

He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me.

The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, and with a playful smile said:

‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’

I stared at him in perplexity.

‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that here. He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’

‘How does he do it?’

‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man–to speak bluntly, illiterate–he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among the merchant gentry!’

‘And does every one in the town know about this?’