Page 2410 - les-miserables

‘I know neither Madame Bagration nor M. Dambray,’
said he. ‘I have never set foot in the house of either of them
in my life.’
The reply was ungracious. The personage, determined to
be gracious at any cost, insisted.
‘Then it must have been at Chateaubriand’s that I have
seen Monsieur! I know Chateaubriand very well. He is very
affable. He sometimes says to me: ‘Thenard, my friend …
won’t you drink a glass of wine with me?’’
Marius’ brow grew more and more severe:
‘I have never had the honor of being received by M. de
Chateaubriand. Let us cut it short. What do you want?’
The man bowed lower at that harsh voice.
‘Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in
America, in a district near Panama, a village called la Joya.
That village is composed of a single house, a large, square
house of three stories, built of bricks dried in the sun, each
side of the square five hundred feet in length, each sto-
ry retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in such a
manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the cir-
cuit of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the
provisions and munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes,
no doors, ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the
first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the
second to the third, ladders to descend into the inner court,
no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the
chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the
ladders are withdrawn carbines and blunderbusses trained
from the loopholes; no means of entering, a house by day,

2410 Les Miserables