On the afternoon before the departure of Crammon and Christian there
was a violent thunder storm. The two men paced up and down in the upper
corridor of the château and discussed their plans. In a pause between
two peals of thunder Crammon listened and said: “What a queer noise.
Did you hear it?”
“Yes,” Christian answered and they followed the direction of the sound.
At the end of the gallery was a mirrored hall, the doors of which were
ajar. Crammon opened the door a little wider, peered in and laughed
softly in his throat. Christian peered in too, above Crammon’s head,
and joined in the laughter.
On the brilliantly polished floor of the room, which contained no
furniture except a few couches and armchairs ranged along the walls,
Letitia stood in little blue slippers and a pale blue gown and
played at ball. Her face had an expression of ecstasy. The all but
uninterrupted lightning that turned the mirrors into yellow flame gave
her play a ghostliness of aspect.
Now she would toss the ball straight up, now she would throw it against
the wall between the mirrors and catch it as it rebounded. At times
she let it fall on the floor and clapped her hands or spread out her
arms until it leaped up to be caught again. She turned and bent over
and threw back her head, or advanced a step or whispered, always
smiling and utterly absorbed. After the two had watched her for a
while, Crammon drew Christian away, for the lightning made him nervous.
He hated an electrical storm and had chosen to walk in the gallery
to escape it. He now lit his short pipe and asked peevishly: “Do you
understand the girl?”
Christian made no answer. Something lured him back to the threshold
of the hall in which Letitia was playing her solitary game. But he
remembered the toad on her white dress, and a strange aversion arose in
his heart.