For a Night of Love Read Online Free Page A

the sight of the grass growing on the steps, the grey façade, the black shutters, that these things seemed to him to be definitive, necessary to the slumber of the neighbourhood.
    Julien had been living on the Place des Quatre-Femmes for five years when, one July evening, an event turned his life upside down. The night was very warm and lit with bright stars. He was playing his flute in the dark, but absentmindedly , slowing down and almost dozing off at certain notes, when suddenly, right opposite, a window of the Marsanne house opened, a slash of brilliant light in the darkfaçade. A young girl had come to lean out, and remained at the window: he could see her slender outline, she seemed to be looking across, lending an attentive ear. Julien, trembling, had stopped playing. He couldn’t make out the girl’s face, he could see only her flowing hair, already let down round her neck. And a light voice came to him through the silence.
    ‘Didn’t you hear that, Françoise? It sounded like music.’
    ‘It must be a nightingale, mademoiselle,’ replied a rough voice from within. ‘Close the shutters, don’t let in the night creatures.’
    Once the façade had become black once more, Julien was unable to leave his armchair, his eyes still dazzled by the gash of light in the wall that up until then had been dead. And he couldn’t stop shaking, wondering if he should be pleased at this apparition. Then, an hour later, he resumed his quiet flute-playing. The thought that the young girl doubtless imagined there was a nightingale in the chestnut trees made him smile.
2
    Next day, at the post office, the latest news was that Mlle Thérèse de Marsanne had just left her convent school. Julien told no one he had seen her with her hair down and her neck bare. He was in a state of great disquiet; he felt an indefinable hostility towards this young girl, who was going to upset his habits. Certainly, that window would annoy him terribly: he would dread seeing its shutters opening at all hours. He would no longer feel at home, he would even have preferred a man than a woman to live opposite, since women are more prone to make fun. How would he find the courage to play his flute now? He played too badly to please a lady who was bound to know about music. So, that evening, afterturning it over and over in his mind, he was sure he hated Thérèse.
    Julien returned home furtively. He didn’t light a candle. That way, she wouldn’t see him. He wanted to go to bed straight away, to show what a bad mood he was in. But he couldn’t resist the need to know what was going on opposite. The window didn’t open. Only around ten o’clock did a pale light finally gleam between the slats of the shutters; then the gleam was extinguished, and he was left gazing at the dark window. From then on, every evening, he resumed this espionage, in spite of himself. He kept the house under surveillance; as he had at first, he strained every nerve to pick up the tiniest tremors that gave life to its old mute stones. Nothing seemed changed, the house continued to sleep its deep sleep; you needed expert ears and eyes to catch a hint of the new life there. Sometimes, there was a flicker of light moving behind the windows, the corner of a curtain was lifted, giving him a glimpse into a huge room. At other times, light footsteps could be heard crossing the garden, the distant sound of a piano reached him, accompanying a voice singing; or the sounds remained even vaguer, a simple passing ripple pointing to the beating of a young heart in the old dwelling. Julien explained his curiosity to himself as the result of his great irritation at all this noise. How he missed the time when the empty house echoed back the subdued sound of his flute!
    One of his most avid desires, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, was to see Thérèse again. He imagined her in his mind’s eye, pink-faced, mocking, her eyes gleaming. But as he never ventured to his window in daylight,