down a rope out of my window; they put the wine in an old basket, tied the rope to its handle, and I pulled it up gently, my last best friend! After this, though the others had gone, I was not quite so lonely, but I kept no count of time, and could not tell now how the hours passed or rather how they seemed to be stolen from me, perhaps it was by the spirits in my trio of bottles, from which came voices and replies, but Colas Breugnon was not there to hear them.
Towards midnight I appeared to be seated in a strawberry bed looking up at the sky through the branches of a tree. How dark the earth was, and how the stars twinkled, the moon too was smiling at me, and all around were twisted distorted old stems and roots, like a nest of serpents grinning horribly. — What was I doing there? My head was spinning, but I seemed to say to myself, "Up with you. Colas! and lie no longer on that old mattress; the bottles are empty, out with you to the garden!" I wanted also to pick some cloves of garlic, because they are said to be a cure for the plague, but scarcely had I set foot on the ground when everything seemed to be enchanted; the sky arched over me like a huge tree, and from its drooping branches hung the stars like glittering fruit, and they all had eyes to look at me; they laughed
