Father Anton lent me a voluminous white nightshirt, white bed-socks, and a copy of L’lnvocation des Anges, leather-bound and smelling of dust, to read by the light of my shaky bedside lamp. We said goodnight on the second floor, where Father Anton himself slept, and then I creaked up through the gloomy house to the long narrow corridor where my own room was. Antoinette had left the light on upstairs, despite Father Anton’s usual frugality, and I was grateful for it. I beetled along that corridor as if the ten evil Sephiroth were panting down my neck, closed my door and locked it. The room was plain, but it wasn’t bad. Apart from the bed, there was a cheap pine dresser with a mirror, and one of those vast French wardrobes in which to hang my crumpled coat and shirt. There was a washbasin in one corner, and a circular window with a view over the snowy rooftops of Pont D’Ouilly. I washed with hard kitchen soap, rinsed my mouth out with water, and then pulled on Father Anton’s nightshirt.
