Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/72

54 a bad dream. I took care, however, not to let him see that I felt the slightest uneasiness. I merely put a light on a chair close to my couch, and began to read the Catechism of Lawiçki, which I had brought with me. The Count wished me good night, and lay down on his sofa, upon which he turned over five or six times; at last he seemed asleep, although he was doubled up like Horace's lover, who, shut up in a chest, touched his head with his bent knees.

From time to time he sighed heavily, or made a kind of nervous rattle, which I attributed to the pecuhar position in which he had chosen to sleep. An hour perhaps passed in this way, and I myself became drowsy. I shut my book, and settled myself as comfortably as was possible on my bed, when an odd giggling sound from my neighbour set me trembling. I looked at the Count. His eyes were shut; his whole body shuddered; from his half-opened lips escaped some hardly articulate words.

"So fresh! . . . so white! . . . The Professor did not know what he said. . Horse is not worth a straw. . . . What a delicious morsel! "