The eyes were blue, prominent, even bulging, and had the mystic’s readiness to tears, but their expression was singularly contradicted by the truculent Kaiser Wilhelm moustache.  The man seemed at once a dreamer and a fighter, and it would have been difficult to tell which character predominated.

He gave the bell stirrup a last yank with his foot and with a heave of his loins regained his equilibrium.  He mopped his brow and smiled down at Des Hermies.

“Well! well!” he said, “you here.”

He descended, and when he learned Durtal’s name his face brightened and the two shook hands cordially.

“We have been expecting you a long time, monsieur.  Our friend here speaks of you at great length, and we have been asking him why he didn’t bring you around to see us.  But come,” he said eagerly, “I must conduct you on a tour of inspection about my little domain.  I have read your books and I know a man like you can’t help falling in love with my bells.  But we must go higher if we are really to see them.”

And he bounded up a staircase, while Des Hermies pushed Durtal along in front of him in a way that made retreat impossible.

As he was once more groping along the winding stairs, Durtal asked, “Why didn’t you tell me your friend Carhaix—­for of course that’s who he is—­was a bell-ringer?”

Des Hermies did not have time to answer, for at that moment, having reached the door of the room beneath the tower roof, Carhaix was standing aside to let them pass.  They were in a rotunda pierced in the centre by a great circular hole which had around it a corroded iron balustrade orange with rust.  By standing close to the railing, which was like the well curb of the Pit, one could see down, down, to the foundation.  The “well” seemed to be undergoing repairs, and from the top to the bottom of the tube the beams supporting the bells were crisscrossed with timbers bracing the walls.

“Don’t be afraid to lean over,” said Carhaix.  “Now tell me, monsieur, how do you like my foster children?”

But Durtal was hardly heeding.  He felt uneasy, here in space, and as if drawn toward the gaping chasm, whence ascended, from time to time, the desultory clanging of the bell, which was still swaying and would be some time in returning to immobility.

He recoiled.

“Wouldn’t you like to pay a visit to the top of the tower?” asked Carhaix, pointing to an iron stair sealed into the wall.

“No, another day.”

They descended and Carhaix, in silence, opened a door.  They advanced into an immense storeroom, containing colossal broken statues of saints, scaly and dilapidated apostles, Saint Matthew legless and armless, Saint Luke escorted by a fragmentary ox, Saint Mark lacking a shoulder and part of his beard, Saint Peter holding up an arm from which the hand holding the keys was broken off.

“There used to be a swing in here,” said Carhaix, “for the little girls of the neighbourhood.  But the privilege was abused, as privileges always are.  In the dusk all kinds of things were done for a few sous.  The curate finally had the swing taken down and the room closed up.”