“But I really can’t complain.  I hate the streets.  When I try to cross one I lose my head.  So I stay in the tower all day, except once in the early morning when I go to the other side of the square for a bucket of water.  Now my wife doesn’t like it up here.  You see, the snow does come in through all the loopholes and it heaps up, and sometimes we are snowbound with the wind blowing a gale.”

They had come to Carhaix’s lodge.  His wife was waiting for them on the threshold.

“Come in, gentlemen,” she said.  “You have certainly earned some refreshment,” and she pointed to four glasses which she had set out on the table.

The bell-ringer lighted a little briar pipe, while Des Hermies and Durtal each rolled a cigarette.

“Pretty comfortable place,” remarked Durtal, just to be saying something.  It was a vast room, vaulted, with walls of rough stone, and lighted by a semi-circular window just under the ceiling.  The tiled floor was badly covered by an infamous carpet, and the furniture, very simple, consisted of a round dining-room table, some old bergere armchairs covered with slate-blue Utrecht velours, a little stained walnut sideboard on which were several plates and pitchers of Breton faience, and opposite the sideboard a little black bookcase, which might contain fifty books.

“Of course a literary man would be interested in the books,” said Carhaix, who had been watching Durtal.  “You mustn’t be too critical, monsieur.  I have only the tools of my trade.”

Durtal went over and took a look.  The collection consisted largely of works on bells.  He read some of the titles: 

On the cover of a slim parchment volume he deciphered the faded legend, hand-written, in rust-coloured ink, “De tintinnabulis by Jerome Magius, 1664”; then, pell-mell, there were:  A curious and edifying miscellany concerning church bells by Dom Remi Carre; another Edifying miscellany, anonymous; a Treatise of bells by Jean-Baptiste Thiers, curate of Champrond and Vibraye; a ponderous tome by an architect named Blavignac; a smaller work entitled Essay on the symbolism of bells by a parish priest of Poitiers; a Notice by the abbe Baraud; then a whole series of brochures, with covers of grey paper, bearing no titles.

“It’s no collection at all,” said Carhaix with a sigh.  “The best ones are wanting, the De campanis commentarius of Angelo Rocca and the De tintinnabulo of Percichellius, but they are so hard to find, and so expensive when you do find them.”

A glance sufficed for the rest of the books, most of them being pious works, Latin and French Bibles, an Imitation of Christ, Goerres’ Mystik in five volumes, the abbe Aubert’s History and theory of religious symbolism, Pluquet’s Dictionary of heresies, and several lives of saints.

“Ah, monsieur, my own books are not much account, but Des Hermies lends me what he knows will interest me.”