The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in showers.
This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was Zetulbe.
The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue Droit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything, attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only for a second, of the "young man" who played that flute so deliciously, and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time.
There were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the third story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch a glimpse through the gaps.
Impossible!
One even went so far as to thrust her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two were still bolder.
They found means to climb on a roof, and risked their lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was an old emigre gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flute in his attic, in order to pass the time.
BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS
CHAPTER VI ⑤⑤
THE LITTLE CONVENT